DVD-Software.info

[Flex]

Dear all,
I´ve attached an old post on Amazon and taxes. Apparently, in
practice when ordering books, the total ammount of takes collected -
the 6%- must be higher than the equivalent of 15 guilders in euros. Do
you confirm??
Best,
Flex


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The only reason I can think of why your Amazon DVD orders pass through
customs unharmed is that customs thinks that Amazon only ship books. In

Holland the
VAT tariff on most goods (including DVDs) is 17.5%, the tariff for
books is something like 5 or 6 percent. In Holland you have to pay tax
on all non-EEC orders worth more than 50 guilders. That's the theory.
The practice is that you only have to pay Dutch customs when the bill
is fifteen guilders or more. (With amounts lower than fifteen guilders
the money it costs to collect the bill would probably be more than the
bill itself). This means that my online DVD orders shouldn't be more
than 85 guilders (85 * 0.175 = 14.88, just below
the tax limit). Buf I can safely order 290 guilders worth of books
before I cross the fifteen guilders limit. (290 *.005 = 14.50) OK,
still with me? The moral of this story is that I can buy lots and lots
of US books (up to 290 guilders) without paying any taxes. Order 3 DVDs

worth 100 guilders and I have to pay 17,50 guilders taxes. But it could

well be that customs think Amazon only ships books and don't tax you
because your 'book' order hasn't crossed the magical fifteen guilders
limit (or whatever it is in
your country). In fact, this may well be the case. I've ordered DVDs
from Amazon only two times and boh packages (falsely) indicated that
the contents
were books.

Here´s the link for the complete thread:


http://groups.google.de/group/alt.video.dvd/browse_frm/thread/7e51262...



Best,


Flex

[P Pron]

Flex wrote:
| Dear all,
| I´ve attached an old post on Amazon and taxes. Apparently, in
| practice when ordering books, the total ammount of takes collected -
| the 6%- must be higher than the equivalent of 15 guilders in euros. Do
| you confirm??
| Best,
| Flex

I don't know how much harmonisation there is across Europe, but in the UK,
VAT is not charged on consignments worth less than Pds Stg 18 (approx 27
Euros), and import duty is not charged on consignments worth less than about
Pds Stg 200. Effectively this means we can import most single DVDs and some
of the cheaper boxsets without paying taxes, provided we make sure that we
place separate orders for each item.

You might like to check with the Dutch Customs Dept to see if they have a
similar policy.

Incidentally, I've found Amazon.com is not too competitive on price when it
comes to shipping costs, and you might like to look at some of the
alternatives - DCDPacific, CD-Wow, etc...

paul