It depends on what Customs area the original supplier, you and your "partners" (wouldn´t call them "customers") live.
I guess once inside the EU, "duties have already been paid".
If the product goes somewhere else, last Country Customs will want to charge their own.
If this proves too expensive maybe "outside" partners won´t benefit as much from group buy discounts.
Now if the object is getting a product otherwise unavailable, as in, say, a custom manufactured product, meeting an 100 unit minimum order, etc., well, each one is responsible of his own.
In theory if you reexport something you might ask a total or partial refund of what you paid, but I guess paperwork and complications will make that impractical unless we are talking a massive purchase.
Just curious, what kind of product are we talking about?
I guess once inside the EU, "duties have already been paid".
If the product goes somewhere else, last Country Customs will want to charge their own.
If this proves too expensive maybe "outside" partners won´t benefit as much from group buy discounts.
Now if the object is getting a product otherwise unavailable, as in, say, a custom manufactured product, meeting an 100 unit minimum order, etc., well, each one is responsible of his own.
In theory if you reexport something you might ask a total or partial refund of what you paid, but I guess paperwork and complications will make that impractical unless we are talking a massive purchase.
Just curious, what kind of product are we talking about?
I am thinking about organising a group buy for a waveguide that fits the larger Scan Speak tweeters.
I'd order a bunch of those waveguides from a CNC service (outside of Switzerland), get them delivered to Switzerland, pay duties, send the waveguides to my partners (outside of Switzerland), and they get charged duties again. Paying VAT/duties twice is just wrong! There must be a way to avoid this!
I believe you can avoid the VAT double charge if you order as a company (with a VAT ID) to sell products to customers. You will either skip paying the VAT, then charge it to your customers and refund it to the Swiss tax authorities, or you will pay the VAT, then claim it back when you show the invoices with VAT charged.
It might be simple to setup the VAT ID but you'll probably have to file tax returns at some point and will have to generate invoices to prove the VAT was collected.
Duties usually do not kick in under a certain value so your customers might not have to pay any, just their local VAT.
I don't believe there is such thing as "easy" when dealing with taxes of any kind
It might be simple to setup the VAT ID but you'll probably have to file tax returns at some point and will have to generate invoices to prove the VAT was collected.
Duties usually do not kick in under a certain value so your customers might not have to pay any, just their local VAT.
I don't believe there is such thing as "easy" when dealing with taxes of any kind
Just occured to me: IF your partners in this collective purchase are all (or 90% of them) in the EU, then have a friend outside Switerland receive delivery, and pay EU VAT *once* , then evenly split that cost (price + VAT) among buyers who would plain pay him as friends or whatever, no invoices involved because it´s not an actual "sale" but a shared purchase.
Then only *one* partner (you) pays Swiss VAT for the couple units you get, only you pay doubled VAT.
Which looks unfair being the organizer so out of courtesy other members could agree to spread your extra VAT expense among them ... a couple Euro each .
I wouldn´t mind, quite the contrary.
Then only *one* partner (you) pays Swiss VAT for the couple units you get, only you pay doubled VAT.
Which looks unfair being the organizer so out of courtesy other members could agree to spread your extra VAT expense among them ... a couple Euro each .
I wouldn´t mind, quite the contrary.
When it comes to group buys, the easiest is that one guy order the stuff, pays the vat etc, then sends it to the partisipants with a invoice or customs value that are low, most often under the limit for when you have to start paying vat in the recipiants country.
In Norway that limit is 350nok, or about $38-40. As for you guys with high vat limit.. Norway has 25%!!!!!
If i buy something costing 349,- nok, i am okay.. I pay 349,-nok. If the price is 351,- nok they add 25% vat, and the post office adds fee for custom handling 158,-nok making the total 596,75 nok!!! Or in other words.. the 2,-nok ($23 cents) extra raises the price 70%!!
In Norway that limit is 350nok, or about $38-40. As for you guys with high vat limit.. Norway has 25%!!!!!
If i buy something costing 349,- nok, i am okay.. I pay 349,-nok. If the price is 351,- nok they add 25% vat, and the post office adds fee for custom handling 158,-nok making the total 596,75 nok!!! Or in other words.. the 2,-nok ($23 cents) extra raises the price 70%!!
Just checked, Switzerland has meager 7.7% VAT
We Argentines pay TWENTY ONE PER CENT VAT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So I´d say, "count your blessings"
I am charged 60% import duties on the total invoice value. So the cheap Chinese 100mm x100mm PCBs are no longer cheap to me. (5$ for PCBway + 23 $ for DHL + 0.6*(5$+23$) for Indian customs = $45 /-
Probably an effort towards the call " Say no to Chinese products"
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Yes sir, In India its cheaper to get the PCBs manufactured locally, but only in large qty (say50+). then it becomes cheap. Because they charge a rate based on per cm2 area+ some fixed charges like (gerber processing charges+ film making charges (silk+copper+stop)+taxes.
So for large GBs, I get the PCBs manufactured locally.
For proto PCBs (~10 nos ), I am now searching for a cheaper solution other than China.
Earlier customs used to let small packets through, but now they are charging customs on everything and that too on invoice value
.One solution would be to use a duty-free storage - most customs agents (those that you pay to free up goods for you and they do all the work on your behalf with a power of attorney) operate such. For as long as goods are in the duty-free storage, you will not pay anything extra on them besides storage daily fees. Splitting up the whole order, however, would be impossible unless goods are clearly separated and identified. If you brake the packaging, I think you will have to pay duties on the whole batch, so something to talk out with the sending party.
I`ll give you another work around (let`s hope the EC does not see it) - Switzerland is part of the EEA. So, once goods are in the EU, they`re not subject to import duties in any member state but the one where they entered the EU for the first time. And here comes the trick - most member states have different import duty thresholds - for example here in Bulgaria its the ridicilous EUR 10 so you basically pay duties on a chewing gum. But, in some other countries it is much higher, I think in the Netherlands it was over EUR 350. Soo, you find a country where this threshold is high and ask the carrier (UPS go through the Netherlands for the very same reason) to import it through this coutnry, this way you pay no import charges or they`re on a small amount. Single market, ha ha.
Import charges are a pain in the a**. For example, I
I`ll give you another work around (let`s hope the EC does not see it
) - Switzerland is part of the EEA. So, once goods are in the EU, they`re not subject to import duties in any member state but the one where they entered the EU for the first time. And here comes the trick - most member states have different import duty thresholds - for example here in Bulgaria its the ridicilous EUR 10 so you basically pay duties on a chewing gum. But, in some other countries it is much higher, I think in the Netherlands it was over EUR 350. Soo, you find a country where this threshold is high and ask the carrier (UPS go through the Netherlands for the very same reason) to import it through this coutnry, this way you pay no import charges or they`re on a small amount. Single market, ha ha.Import charges are a pain in the a**. For example, I
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