Why USA sellers do not want to specify lower parcel value?

[JoeyP]

One of the penalties of customs fraud is losing your rights to export. So the vendor's reward for helping you defraud your government is losing his ability to export to any customers at all. So according to your assertion, ya, they stupidly want to stay in business.

[Achilles]

If you want a lower invoice buy in China..... High chances they'll do it anyway, even if you ask them to declare the right value for fast processing.
Well, that lower value doesn't help you with fees from you delivery service.

And apart from all that
Scenario a:
-You buy sth. for 10USD (actual price) and pay probably 15USD shipping (if cheap) and 80Euro brokerage fees
-> I guess buying it locally would have been smarter
Scenario b:
-You buy some equipment for 400USD and 400USD is declared
-> Just pay for what you have received like you should. You have to calculate what the product plus VAT, customs, shipping and fees will end up. If it's more than on the local market, buy it there.
I don't get why a US seller should care about your problem there and risk his own reputation/business just because you don't want to pay what you should.

[grumpydoc]

Actually I'd much rather if sellers, especially from the far east would put the correct value on the package.

The problem is that in the UK (and probably, in theory at least, Lithuania as it is part of the EU and officially has a similar framework for import duties and taxes) the government will come after me for the tax evasion.

It's simple really from their point of view. They might not have the sender's name or address and even if they did they live comfortably outside the government's jurisdiction. They do however have the recipient's address and as a bonus they hold legal powers over him/her - who do you think they're going to chase?

Revenue&Customs in the UK are generally not to be messed with - they have all sorts of entertaining and far reaching powers. Even though they were trimmed down a bit a few years ago they still have the right to turn up to business premises unannounced and gain entry and inspect tax records. These days, at least, they aren't allowed to search or enter residential premises; well, not without a warrant but I bet that's really hard for them to get - not!

[haveissues]

DE TERK ER JERBS!

I was reading through this thread expecting to see the above reference and you did not disappoint.

It's those damn Americans screwing you eh?  Your anger is misplaced.  I recently bought a wood fired wood boiler in the Czech Republic and imported it to the states.  I paid $0 in taxes/import duty since it was for personal use. If it was for business it would only be a couple of %.  Sure the amount you have to pay is obscene but why should the seller get stuck with the bill when they get caught?  And yes, this thread is amusing.  I was expecting a punch line but it did not come.

[Corporate666]

I send hundreds of packages per year overseas, and here is why I don't declare lower values.


1) Almost EVERYONE asks me to do it.  For the receiver, sure, it's "just this once", but if I do it when asked, I'd be doing it for everyone.  And if I ever have someone knocking on my door because I have been under-valuing packages, I'm going to be in trouble for each and every time I did it.  In other words, I have a lot more to lose than you do.

2) You can't declare an item worth $10 but insure it for $500.  If the package is lost, the receiver can just do a chargeback on their credit card or open a PayPal dispute.  The fact that I would be out $490 isn't going to weigh on their conscience.  On the other hand, if they could not get their money back and I reimbursed them $10 from the insurance payout, the buyer is going to go ape-shit over that.  In other words, you want me to take the risk of being caught lying about value, but you're not willing to take the risk on the package being lost - you want me to take that risk too.

3) I agree that import taxes and duties are too high.  The solution is to change your laws - elect people who are in favor of fixing the problem.  If you successfully avoid it, then you turn into Greece, where they enact ever more stringent laws, and ever more people avoid them.  And we know what happens then.

[Chasm]

Actually I'd much rather if sellers, especially from the far east would put the correct value on the package.

Yeah, getting correctly declared stuff through customs is easy, undeclared or falsely declared things are a real pain.

What I dislike most is that I also have to pay on the shipping cost. That US sellers seem to love expensive shipping methods even for extremely cheap, small and light parts does not help either.

[haveissues]

DE TERK ER JERBS!

I was reading through this thread expecting to see the above reference and you did not disappoint.

It's those damn Americans screwing you eh?  Your anger is misplaced.  I recently bought a wood fired wood boiler in the Czech Republic and imported it to the states.  I paid $0 in taxes/import duty since it was for personal use. If it was for business it would only be a couple of %.  Sure the amount you have to pay is obscene but why should the seller get stuck with the bill when they get caught?  And yes, this thread is amusing.  I was expecting a punch line but it did not come.

I'm guessing you're not a South Park fan.



I don't think it was meant to be serious.

I think you misunderstood mine 

I was expecting somebody to make the south park reference before I found it.  I didn't think it was meant to be serious either.

[larry42]

Here the post office charges 50usd for doing customs work. I hate it, but not much I can do. Ups and FedEx are actually cheaper....

I'm glad when the HK dealers write values of 5 USD because as a registered company I can get the VAT back anyway, but the costs (and administration costs in paying account to put another transaction in the ledger) means that its a hassle, but expected, when things are declared for their full value.

The op seems rather naive...

Sent from my HTC One S using Tapatalk 2

[Mechatrommer]

@mechatrommer : if you are a business you pay no tax. tax is shoved through to the end user. If you are the end user you eat the tax. simple as that.

and that is even funnier. say a company want to send parts to its engineer. and the engineer has to pay that tax at "business rate"? poor guy. that poor guy usually ordered electronics from China with no tax at all. i dont get how this digikey mechanism works. and it wont make any difference if the company is run by a single person , the end user = company = pay "business class" tax. my point still stands.

[senso]

Here in Portugal its almost the same, but there is one fundamental rule, avoid FedEx, DHL, UPS and some other shipping companies, because they are very kind and will charge you about 90€ so that you don't need to spend any time sending an email to the customs, that 90€ is a fee for their so kind work, and its all for them, in top of that you pay VAT, and custom duties, I love when people from USA ship using USPS as that is handled by our national post ofices and all you need to pay is VAT, custom fees, and 3€ for the service, VAT is a pain, due to its exaggerated 23% value, but the fees are usually in the 0.x% to 5% of total.

[tinhead]

If you want a lower invoice buy in China.....

right, it is really hard to get real price on Chinese invoice. This is due the fact that they have to pay as well
if the total value is too high for a "gift", "comercial samples" from small dealer are anyway not possible
(oh well, they don't want to be tracked down as dealer ...).

For me it was always a disaster, each time i had to explain to customs dep the difference in my and "chinese" price, each time
the same fight with tax departement - customs dep know this issue, but tax don't, and they don't trust anybody anyway :\

I found a solution, a contact person in China is buying items for me, preparing all documents with proper price and sending
then all together - per express - no EMS crap, no extra f* EMS fees what so ever, and of course properly insured,
i hate to lose money only because i was thinking to save some money with cheating myself (this works for 1$ item one time,
but when you lose items for hundreds of $$$ you will not cheat on yourself next time).

What i hate are US sellers with the (non existing in most case) "company policy" to send things only via UPS or FedEx - but not
and never via USPS. I've tested view such idiots already, tried to buy from Germany "ihh no, we can't ship with USPS, company
policy, only FedEx or UPS" ... ok, then tested same item with my canadian account "no problem, we can ship with USPS", when
asked why got everyhtign as answer, from fuck off to "Europe is not Canada, it is so complex for us" .. yeah, right, but only is you
have to paddle with small boat over the ocean ... but what i complex on custom papers? I remember even an idiot who told me
"i can send to UK, no problem for me, but not to Germany". I assume he didn't got that customs papers can be filled out in English
lang as well.

Sure, some have really such policy (e.g. to fullfil the req./signed amount of yearly shipments), but they could at least select cheaper
method - i really don't need for every crap thing "Next Day over the ocean" !

[Spawn]

I was wondering why almost every one of you Americans are so should I say fools, or something.

Awww, someone had to pay more and blame whole nation for it.

Newsflash for you my friend that is how it works, you can ask the seller to mark the shipment to lower value and if they don’t want to, you are free to buy or not, no one is obligating you.

Of we have those here too, I'm talking about some american only made devices like DMMcheck, ucurrent, other stuff you can't get in EU for some reason

uCurrent is not made in the states, should know that by now, besides there are couple online stores for uCurrent in Europe.

[EEVblog]

Since when selling cheaper is mail fraud?
I can send you 2 payments, you can put the cheaper one on the envelope, no fraud in that. And the second for the rest of the value I have to pay.

It's still fraud.
How can you not understand this?

N2IXK nailed it in his post. This is YOUR problem, not the senders. If your country taxes things to buggery, try to get your laws changed. Don't ask sellers overseas to commit fraud because your country has tax problems.
What have you done to try and fix your countries import tax problem?

Dave.

[EEVblog]

uCurrent is not made in the states, should know that by now, besides there are couple online stores for uCurrent in Europe.

There is only one official EU supplier for the uCurrent, Robot Italy.
I believe someone is selling an "Open Current", but if anyone else is selling an actual uCurrent, then I'd like to know about it...

Dave.

[smile]

other than fraud and penalty issues mentioned... if the buyer asked for envelop, and the envelop lost in the sea, who will the buyer blames? the seller of course! its back to square one,

I do believe that seller is not a fraud, and I don't care if I lose the parcel, it's a risk I'm willing to take.

[smile]

smile, the local carrier ripping you off is YOUR PROBLEM. Funny that you complain about corruption in Lithuania, but advocate fraud in the US. Should every country try to become as rotten as Lithuania, just so you can save some money?

I do not advocacy fraud,  I do not force anyone to sell intentionally, but if one chooses to sell internationally it is nice if the you understand that you better then do not sell to certain countries at all.

[smile]

Some postal services will levy additional fees for handling the import duty for you, they have to pay customs then they invoice you, so they charge for the privilege. Fair enough. DHL, Fed-ex and UPS charge something like £9.50 to do this, your state-owned postal service will probably charge more.

In my country DHL, and UPS charge the mentioned about 80$ too.

VAT is also levied by your government, here in the UK is it 20% for most things. But if you are VAT-registered, which you will be if you're a business, you claim this back. So you should be paying 0-20% of the value of the item in import duty, plus customs clearing fees, plus VAT.

In my country VAT is exempt if you are registered to do so, for small businesses VAT cannot be claimed back. And as you said by buying internatinally you allready pay VAT in the country you buy from. I'm OK with that but you please understand that the problem is with the "paperwork " they charge you so much for this that it's better to avoid it else not worth buying at all.

Expecting your foreign supplier to under-declare the customs value is not trivial, he would be committing fraud by doing this, and as a business he's got better things to worry about than you moaning about your local laws. He'd rather not supply you than worry about his local customs authorities throwing the book at him.

I'm not doing commerce here, I do not plan resell this. If I would do commerce I would not care, I would just increase my selling price. It's a one time purchase for personal use.

If you want one party in the transaction to commit fraud, make sure it's you. Don't get arsey with your supplier because he's not willing to take any legal flak for you.

Everyone chooses for what amount they sell their things online, why can't the seller like all other, believe me I buy from all over the world and only USA sellers are like this.

[smile]

One of the penalties of customs fraud is losing your rights to export. So the vendor's reward for helping you defraud your government is losing his ability to export to any customers at all. So according to your assertion, ya, they stupidly want to stay in business.

Can't you differentiate helping someone and doing commerce ?
If it's a one time purchase, and certainly I do not ask for invoices included in the parcel what kind of fraud is that.
Why can't you lower the value of the item for one time purchase what you can't do that even to help someone well that just shows how ignorant you are.

[smile]

I don't get why a US seller should care about your problem there and risk his own reputation/business just because you don't want to pay what you should.

The US seller should understand that it is simply helping someone with their one time purchase, I do not plan to import these illegally and sell it here, however somehow everyone seems to understand it exactly like this.

Sellers have the right to sell for whatever price they seem fit, so like I said if you want to include you paypal invoice with the parcel I can make you 2 transactions, no fraud there. And like I said I already payed VAT in USA.

[Bored@Work]

I do not advocacy fraud,

You do. You want senders to commit fraud - you just play the childish game of claiming that what you ask them to do is not fraud.

[smile]

uCurrent is not made in the states, should know that by now, besides there are couple online stores for uCurrent in Europe.

Any links?

[JoeyP]

One of the penalties of customs fraud is losing your rights to export. So the vendor's reward for helping you defraud your government is losing his ability to export to any customers at all. So according to your assertion, ya, they stupidly want to stay in business.

Can't you differentiate helping someone and doing commerce ?
If it's a one time purchase, and certainly I do not ask for invoices included in the parcel what kind of fraud is that.
Why can't you lower the value of the item for one time purchase what you can't do that even to help someone well that just shows how ignorant you are.

There's nothing to differentiate. As a vendor, I don't make the decision. The government does. If money changes hands, it's commerce. If I break the rules, I loose.

I accept that you don't give a crap about the vendor as long as it saves you money, but are you truly so dense that you can't even understand the concept?

I'm with the others who think this thread must be some deliberate hoax. No one can be that oblivious unless it is on purpose.

[EEVblog]

The US seller should understand that it is simply helping someone with their one time purchase

It is NOT!
You are asking them commit (albeit minor) FRAUD for your benefit!
What part of this do you not understand?

Sellers have the right to sell for whatever price they seem fit, so like I said if you want to include you paypal invoice with the parcel I can make you 2 transactions, no fraud there. And like I said I already payed VAT in USA.

You have no idea how this works.
When you send something overseas, you fill out a CN22 customs form. If you declare a value on that form of less than the actual value of the goods inside, you are making a fraudulent statement, and there are penalties for this. The same thing applies when you tick "gift" when you actually received money for it.
It does not mater how the payments were made, or for how much.

Dave.

[EEVblog]

uCurrent is not made in the states, should know that by now, besides there are couple online stores for uCurrent in Europe.

Any links?

http://www.robot-italy.com/en/blog/news-resources/418

But you would have known that is you simply checked my web site.

Dave.

[mikeselectricstuff]

And if I ever have someone knocking on my door because I have been under-valuing packages, I'm going to be in trouble for each and every time I did it.  In other words, I have a lot more to lose than you do.

That is never ever going to happen, as any import is a matter between the importer (the customer) and their local customs authority. Do you really think a foreign customs authority is going to come over to investigate and prosecute someone in a foreign country?

One problem is the USA has a quite high threshold before duties get charged ($200 -ish ISTR), so they often don't appreciate  that on even quite low value packages, buyers will get charged a disproportionate amount due to fixed handling fees.

Some also don't realise that the importer is charged the declared value plus the amount of postage, and include the postage in the declared value, so the buyer pays too much.

US people seem a lot more likely than others  to have a problem with reducing declared values - probably a cultural thing about following rule and fear of authority. Whearas I don't think I've ever had anything from China with the  right value!