Re: HP 15C LE back in stock at HP Home Store Message #15 Posted by Maximilian Hohmann on 27 Sept 2011, 3:46 a.m., in response to message #14 by Michael de Estrada
Good morning!
Quote: Is that your VAT ? Whenever I ship a calc to someone in Europe, I always show it as a "gift" on the customs form with a value of $0.
Please don't do that without talking to your buyer first! Our customs officers are not stupid! Whenever I collect parcels from overseas at customs, they ask to be shown either printouts of eBay transactions, invoices, credit card slips, or PayPal invoices. If I can't produce any of these of if they have any doubt about them, they will determine the value of the goods by themselves. Usually much higher than what I actually paid.
Declaring something as "gift" does not help at all because taxation on gifts is exactly the same as for purchased items. For customs and taxation, it does not matter at all who paid for the item in the first place!
And if the value declared on the parcel is lower than the actual value (like your 0$ statement) they may actually accuse me of attempted tax fraud which is a serious criminal offence.
Another good reason for declaring the real value is the package insurace. If ever something gets lost (has not happened to me yet) you will be reimbursed the declared value. 0$ does not really help.
And regarding that "awful" VAT: For me, this is one of the best and fairest taxes. A direct tax on consumation. People who can afford more expensive goods and services pay more than those who can't. No loopholes for the rich and smart. In return for these taxes, we (at least here in Germany) pay nothing to send our children to school, college and university, have roads with very few potholes, get excellent medical services at moderate cost (for everybody!) and so on. I rather pay VAT on my toys than heaps of money for all these things!
Regards,
max
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