A tip for people selling internationally...

[Tomas]

When sending your parcel be sure to clearly mark it as a Gift even if you do receive payment for it. When you fill out the customs form make sure to tick the relevant box.

I totally agree on this one. I live in a country"Norway" where you have insane high import duties and you also have to pay a insane fee just to have the customs calculate the duties.
Since we are not a member of EU, we have to even pay when importing from EU countries  :-(
Anything over 200nok"25euro" will be affected by this. The funny part is that the amount has been the same since the 70s, and then the 200nok was worth much more than it is today. There has been alot of debate about raising the limit, but so far the government has been to greed to do anything about it, since they earn alot of money on it.

[Tomas]

acottrill wrote:
What you are proposing is called "tax evasion" in my country.  I don't know what they call it in your neck of the woods but I'm pretty sure they have a similar term.  I'm pretty sure when caught both parties are punished.  Not worth it IMHO.

Well, i dont see how the seller can get punished for this. And it is also impossible for them to find out if it is really a gift or not. And is it really right that i should pay twice the damn price if i buy something costing just a tad more than 25euros?? It makes it impossible for me to buy anything from other countries.
And afaik you can send the package pretty anonymousely anyways..

[Tomas]

weirdami wrote:

as PaSha has just pointed out, tax laws can be completely preposterous

Saying that taxes kick in at a certain amount doens't make them preposterous. Looks like his government was giving the little guy a break with that 200/500 maximum. They had to kick in somewhere. Doing an example like his is what is called demogogery. (No, I never thought I could use that word ever, either.)

I am ok with paying some taxes for more expensive stuff, but the limits of 200NOK is way to low and has not been changed in over 30 years. 200NOK in the 70s was more like 1500nok today.
Not only do you have to pay taxes, but you also to pay insane amounts just for the cutsoms to handle the item, which makes it so not worth it as it will become way more expensive than buying this said item here in norway.