[aprssig] [OT] Re: shipping and sales taxes

[Dave B]

Perry.

To ship something from the UK to the US, we have to pay up front, costs 
and tax on top..  If you compare like for like, it's about 3 times more 
expensive for a sender to send something TO the US, FROM the UK, than it 
is for you to send it FROM the US, TO the UK.

It's similar for other parts of the EU too.   Those costs have to be 
covered, so someone selling from the UK for example, will have to add 
much more shipping costs than you might imagine, else they'll be 
seriously out of pocket.

Genuine "Traders" who are VAT registered, can waive that for "Export".  
So you appear to save, but may not if you get hit your end by your taxes.

The other way round, we (in the UK) get hit hard if something comes in 
via the "Postal" network.   I recently ordered some replacement capacitor 
kits from a Canadian guy.  It took an age to get here (surface mail) and 
then, even though there was no duty to pay (the total base value of the 
goods being under some threshold.)  I still had to pay over £8UK 
"Handling" charges, and our VAT at 20% on the value of the goods + 
handling!  Just to get "my" package.   Upping the end cost some 30% from 
what I initialy paid by plastic.

I too have taken stuff from HK and China (eBay purchases) and "got away" 
with no import fees in the past, but when we do get hit, they hit hard.

Regards.

Dave G0WBX.



On 30 May 2012 at 14:49, Eric Lorenz K9LGE wrote:

> 
> Perry,
> Not to get persnickety, but your int statement is not completely true.
> Even if a company has no offices in a state that you are ordering
> from, if *your* state collects USE tax, then you *are* liable for
> paying taxes on out of state purchases (IL is one of those). Now in
> theory, most everyone ignores it, but it is on the books. Used to be a
> half page return that you filled with your state inc tax return. Eric
> K9LGE On May 30, 2012 8:21 AM, "Perry Chamberlain" <canoeman at qnet.com>
> wrote:
> 
> 
>     Respectfully
> 
>     Perry Chamberlain
> 
> 
>     On May 30, 2012, at 5:00 AM, aprssig-request at tapr.org wrote:
> 
>     > Don't forget, you've still got to pay for him to ship the stuff
>     from the > EU to the US, and that is not cheap to do these days,
>     what with all the > security paranoia... Especially, if the goods
>     did not "originate" from > the US in the first place. > > It's
>     many times more expensive to ship *INTO* the US, than for you to >
>     ship stuff out of your county.  FYI. > > In any case, I still
>     don't consider those costs shown above, as "low > cost".  Plus,
>     it's (yet) another layer of complexity, therefore another >
>     posible source of possible errors, ready to take down what you
>     want back > into the noise. > > Whatever happened to the KISS
>     principle? > > 73.
> 
>     I don't know where you get the idea it is expensive to ship here.
>     I order equipment from china, Canada, hong kong, and the EU, very
>     cheap prices, and NO DUTY, no taxes. It is often cheaper to buy a
>     radio in the USA from china, or the UK, then it is to buy it here.
>     When I order boards from out of the country, I pay no tax, no
>     duty. And paying $120.00 for a dstar board to tack on to an older
>     analog radio, and voila, you have an instant simplex dstar
>     repeater, is very cheap indeed, as opposed to an Icom $3,000.00
>     repeater. So I am not sure about what you are talking about. When
>     Americans buy from outside their state, they pay no sales tax.
>     Unless the company has an office in that state. A lot of hams play
>     the shipping game. Look local, buy out of state. I tend to buy
>     commercial ham radios from my local ham stores, to support local
>     businesses. But I will shop anywhere, for an item I can't find
>     here. When we see a dutchstar or German dstar board for 120.00,
>     that plus $10.00 shipping from overseas, that is what we pay, no
>     more. I on the other hand don't ship out of the USA, because of
>     other countries high import duties. My dongle, dvap 880h, and
>     ID31a were all bought locally. That sounds pretty simple to me!
> 
> 
> 
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