A tip for people selling internationally...

[acottrill]

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.

[Marco]

nadoom wrote:
because that would by lying? wouldnt it?

Lesser of two evils, as PaSha has just pointed out, tax laws can be completely preposterous, further, tax can't be charged on an item more than once, that's why it's paid by the person receiving the goods and not the person selling the goods, as outlined in the original post. Thus what the governments are doing charging us tax for used Amiga components (or any pre-bought stuff which has already had duty paid on it) is plain and simple robbery.

I suppose it might be 'unfortunate' to some of the more moraly minded out there that we have to lie to get around their attempts to fleece us, I would have no qualms about doing so.

@ acottrill: 'I say avoision! It's in the dictionary look it up.' LOL seriously though, as the OP said - duty is only payable once on any given goods, no more, no less.

[acottrill]

"The duty is only payable once on any given goods, no more, no less."   He muttered as the Judge slammed down his gavel...

[Marco]

Well I obviously don't know about US laws, maybe they're messed up and allow the govt to charg over and over, but I'm pretty sure St. Blair can't do that to us, he can only pay the judges with discreet brown envelopes in order to give the ruling he wants.

[acottrill]

oh yeah...Taxes are levied on goods repeatedly and all levels of government in the US.  the basic rule in the US is "every time money and/or goods change hands the government gets a piece of the action" Here are a few examples...

at the federal level:
my dad has worked all his life to build a very successful chain of auto parts stores. He's paid revenue taxes, all this time.  we have had to do some significant estate planning to insure that when he dies we will be able to pay the estate tax (death tax) without selling off all the assets.


at the state level:
when I buy a new car I pay a sales tax based on the purchase price.  in order to operate the vehicle on the road I have to pay an annual excise tax to maintain my vehicle registration.  when I sell the vehicle the buyer has to pay a sales tax.  when he sells it the next buyer pays a sales tax.


and my favorite, at the county level...
every time a home is sold an excise tax is paid to the county.  next to the commission you pay to the realtor (if you use one) it's the largest cost to the seller in the purchase/sale process.

and with all of these taxes we don't have socialized medicine.  maybe we need to start charging import duties on packages entering the US so we can raise our standard of care  :roll:

but the cool thing is this, a gift is a gift and if thats what it says on the form thats what it has to be. i think its partly a moral thing and also the "i dont wanna have to pay more for what i just paid for" idea.

like i said a gift is a gift.

[alenppc]

InTheSand wrote:

On the flip side, what happens if the package is stopped by customs, opened and they find that the 4Gb CF card you ordered is actually worth more than the stated $5?

Well nothing's going to happen, because the parcels are usually open to check that there are no illegal items such as drugs/weapons present inside. For all they know it just as well be a gift. It's not illegal.

Mind you, the parcel containing the A600 I bought from the UK was marked as containing "books", it was opened and closed at customs, they didn't really care.

[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..

[alenppc]

Marco wrote:

I suppose it might be 'unfortunate' to some of the more moraly minded out there that we have to lie to get around their attempts to fleece us, I would have no qualms about doing so.

Well said.

'The public doesn't know anything about wasting public money. We are the experts.'

 -- Sir Humphrey ("Yes, Minister")

[alenppc]

Tomas wrote:

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..

No one will get punished for anything unless you live in a totalitarian regime. Besides, if the buyer wants to pay import duties, all he/she has to do is phone the customs and say "I want to pay customs for a package I received". Believe me, they won't say no even if it's utterly worthless. :roll:

I mean, if we Amigans can't help ourselves who can we help?

[Cyberus]

@bark40oz

FedEx is sniffing for DVDs these days.

Really cool

Awwwwww! Look at the little cute poochy-woochies....

Sorry, I, ahem, like dogs okay?



Oh and:

"United Kingdom, Los Angeles - - The Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), express delivery company FedEx and HM Revenue & Customs, has joined forces to launch an exciting new initiative to help combat DVD piracy.

Since when has the UK been in LA?

[motorollin]

InTheSand wrote:
For all they know it just as well be a gift. It's not illegal.

It is illegal. They just won't know.

--
moto

[countzero]

AmigaMance wrote:
 Why not?

Well, if the seller does not send parcels very often, it probably won't matter at all. But if he's a regular e-bay seller and he uses the same post office to send various 'gifts' all over the world, it would draw attention sooner or later. I'm not sure what would happen if the post officers get suspicious though. I don't think there's actually a way that they can prove the items are not a gift, too much hassle to prove the payment.

[weirdami]

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.)

[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.