General > General Technical Chat
Aliexpress dodgy GST tax
tszaboo:
--- Quote from: retiredfeline on March 29, 2024, 05:59:55 am ---Where do you see that you are charged at least $1 GST? I've always paid 10% no matter what the total (price + shipping). AliExpress is registered in Australia and is obliged to collect GST.
Shipping charges are a different matter, it's up to the seller and some sellers tempt buyers with cheap prices but the shipping is expensive. I look for companies that will sell multiples units or items with minimal increase in shipping cost.
PCB orders fly under the GST radar because the firms are not registered in Australia and the GST is too small to collect.
--- End quote ---
In the EU, they will just slap a ~20 EUR import tax + VAT administration fee to your item. And then VAT to the administration fee. So your 1 EUR item would be ~26 once it gets here.
wraper:
--- Quote from: tszaboo on March 29, 2024, 08:41:38 am ---
--- Quote from: retiredfeline on March 29, 2024, 05:59:55 am ---Where do you see that you are charged at least $1 GST? I've always paid 10% no matter what the total (price + shipping). AliExpress is registered in Australia and is obliged to collect GST.
Shipping charges are a different matter, it's up to the seller and some sellers tempt buyers with cheap prices but the shipping is expensive. I look for companies that will sell multiples units or items with minimal increase in shipping cost.
PCB orders fly under the GST radar because the firms are not registered in Australia and the GST is too small to collect.
--- End quote ---
In the EU, they will just slap a ~20 EUR import tax + VAT administration fee to your item. And then VAT to the administration fee. So your 1 EUR item would be ~26 once it gets here.
--- End quote ---
It's just VAT collected at sale through IOSS if it's <EUR150. Otherwise it depends. In Latvia, as individual I can do simplified customs clearance myself with zero additional fees for <EUR1000 shipments. As a company, I do full blown much more complicated clearance myself too, no additional fees for post, fedex and ups. DHL bastards want to collect "document processing fee" if you don't delegate them doing clearance (was EUR 14 last time I used them) so I didn't use them for years.
pcprogrammer:
--- Quote from: tszaboo on March 29, 2024, 08:41:38 am ---In the EU, they will just slap a ~20 EUR import tax + VAT administration fee to your item. And then VAT to the administration fee. So your 1 EUR item would be ~26 once it gets here.
--- End quote ---
Only when the shop you are buying from does not handle the VAT themselves. Then the postperson will knock on your door and collect the VAT + administration fee from you.
Aliexpress handles the VAT for you, so no problem there. But that said, the shipping cost are increasing making it less and less interesting to buy stuff from them.
brucehoult:
--- Quote from: pcprogrammer on March 29, 2024, 08:22:06 am ---
--- Quote from: brucehoult on March 29, 2024, 07:54:11 am ---
--- Quote from: pcprogrammer on March 29, 2024, 07:46:19 am ---On a side note global sales tax sounds more honest than value added tax. The tax does not add real value to an item,
--- End quote ---
That is not what it means.
VAT means a tax on the value an entity adds to goods. E.g. if you pay $10 for some parts, pay someone $2 to assemble them into some novel thing, and sell it for $20 then you have added $8 of value and you'll be taxed on $8.
--- End quote ---
That may have been the initial idea behind it and sounds better than how it seems to be used.
--- End quote ---
But as you yourself describe later, you pay VAT on the difference between your inputs and your outputs. And get a refund if your outputs are worth less than your costs.
--- Quote ---Because when I look at a bill from something I buy, I see the price without tax and the percentage of tax, which varies from 0 to 20%, at least over here in France, and the total I have to pay. In NL the max is 21% for as far as I'm up to date.
--- End quote ---
And that's pretty stupid and adds huge costs, both to dealing with different rates on different things, but also paying people to decide which rate is for which thing. e.g. basic food such as cookies is 0%, but luxury food such as chocolate is 20%. So which is biscuits coated with a layer of chocolate? Does it depend on the thickness of the layer? etc etc, on a million different goods.
Here in New Zealand everything is 15%, no variations, no exceptions. If poor people can't afford basic food, given them money directly, don't muck about with the tax rate on the food.
--- Quote ---Some foods are taxed at lower rates, and I recently found that for anything concerning renewable energy is taxed at 5.5%
--- End quote ---
I recall somewhere in the USA there being different tax rates on a coffee drunk in the shop, and a take-out coffee from the same shop. As I recall, take-out had the higher rate. I could say I'd drink the coffee in the shop, and then actually walk out with it and THEY COULDN'T STOP ME BWAHAHAHA
tszaboo:
--- Quote from: pcprogrammer on March 29, 2024, 09:46:32 am ---
--- Quote from: tszaboo on March 29, 2024, 08:41:38 am ---In the EU, they will just slap a ~20 EUR import tax + VAT administration fee to your item. And then VAT to the administration fee. So your 1 EUR item would be ~26 once it gets here.
--- End quote ---
Only when the shop you are buying from does not handle the VAT themselves. Then the postperson will knock on your door and collect the VAT + administration fee from you.
Aliexpress handles the VAT for you, so no problem there. But that said, the shipping cost are increasing making it less and less interesting to buy stuff from them.
--- End quote ---
Of course. Only if your seller doesn't handle import tax and VAT. You want DDP incoterms, because somehow doing the same VAT handling is practically free, while in Europe some automated process to send you a link to pay VAT in an email or phone message is 25 EUR.
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