German customs - I was taxed ...

[Matus Kalisky]

Hello,

I would like to share my last experience with overseas purchase and also ask for your opinion.

Well, I bought via eBay from a very kind seller an Osaka 400/8 tele. The lens already arrived and I have it on my table - looks as new and the shutter sounds right - so from this point of view I am fully satisfied. But.

The lens was declared as "Commercial Sample", but the bill contained full decription (== USED item) together with eBay ID.

The price was $285 + shipping $50 = #325 (equals 257 euro).

German customs took the final number and taxed it = 52 euro + 17 euro of some kind of handling fees. So, comming back to $$$ it makes cca $90 :-(

My questions are:

1) is it OK to tax even the shipping cost ?

2) is it OK to tax used item bought wia eBay ?

3) would it be proper from the seller point of view to declare the item as "OTHER" ?

4) what is your experience of buing overseas with customs and what kind of declaration you make when you are in the position os SELLER ?

.. I am just trying to find out wheter it makes sense to bother calling the customs office in Frankfurt with my poor german language knowledge.

Matus

[Juergen Sattler]

This is really not the seller's problem, but rather your lack of understanding how customs in Germany and most other countries work. They don't care if you bought something new or used - it will be taxed and custom duty will be due. Germany in particular is a real PITA. In my eBay transactions I make it very clear that duties and taxes are the buyer's responsibility and that the package will me marked as "other goods" and the winning value will be used to insure the package. Many buyers ask me to declare it as a gift, but I refuse to do that - it is illiegal.

Sorry you had to find all this out the hard way.

[Struan Gray]

This is normal.

If Mwst/VAT was paid when the item was sold new, then you don't need to pay it again. If not, then you should pay it, even on secondhand goods within the EU. Stores with secondhand inventories from pro and amatuer photographers will often distinguish between equipment from a pro's business (which is liable for tax, because the business will have bought the gear tax-free) and equipment from private people (where tax has already been paid).

They usually don't bother with policing sales between individuals, but a pro photographer who buys VAT-free gear and then sells it on into the general market without charging VAT is risking a whopping fine from the tax authorities if (when) they do a detailed audit of their tax receipts.

Letters and gifts from abroad don't attract extra tax, but if you buy something from outside the EU the postage is regarded as part of the service or goods you bought. So VAT gets charged on the postage too.

All in all a royal pain in the backside. It's done to stop evasion of sales tax, and to level the playing field for retailers within the EU. Computerised tracking and inventory of parcels has made it much, much easier for the tax authorities to handle the enormous load of actually doing this for every small parcel bought by EU citizens from the USA. The real bummer is not that you have to pay a legal tax (that's a political issue), but that the tax is in practice impossible to reclaim if you have to send the thing you bought back to the seller.

[Barry Wilkinson]

Some years ago the tax authorities in the UK said that vat was only due on the profit part of a secondhand sale. I don't know if this was due to an EU ruling? They implied that camera shops selling secondhand items should be able to set the tax on the profit margin, not on the total sales value. How this would ever work in practice I don't know. Has anyone heard of this? We could reduce our tax burden.

I pay vat, import duties on some items and a handling charge for every item I buy outside of the EU, new or old. IMO Government robbery!

Barry

[Struan Gray]

In the UK, the real scandal is the amount the Post Office wants as a handling fee to collect the tax. The Swedish post office is much more reasonable.

[GPS]

Matus, it's completely normal, unfortunately. If you ask the authorities for a detailed explanation they will tell you the rules of the game. Good to know for the next time.

[Matus Kalisky]

Well, troubles attract attention - so many answers so quickly. Thank you for all your explanations and experiencies. Mine - although limited up to now - was positive - I bought two times a lens (eBay) and once some cases from photobackpacker without the duty of paying the tax, but I should probably assign this to pure luck.

Matus

[riooso]

Isn't Europe great!

Richard Adams

[CP Goerz]

When I sell to an overseas bidder I always mark the item gift and value of $25 or less unless they want full insurance in which case I have to mark the package all the way up.


I believe they do have duty in the US too, it just hardly ever seems to be enforced.

[Richard Sanders]

The problem is you really have to know the situation for import fees and VAT (and/or any other applicable fees) when you buy. It's a nasty shock when you get get a big bill from Customs before they'll give you your parcel.

I'm sure that what Juergen Sattler said about marking as a 'gift' is usually true however after doing a bit of reading myself for those of us in the UK it might be good to know that any private purchase (as in consumer to consumer) should be marked as such, although this only raises the non-taxable bracket to £32.

Don't you lucky chaps (and chapesses) across the pond get a $2000 limit?