If you purchased something for more than $25 (or whatever is local non-taxable amount) but claimed it to be less than that amount - yes, you are cheating.
EU does not collect VAT or any other tax, taxes are collected by countires (or their government). When government purchases something - they are paying (in most of the cases) with the money collected by taxes. But this is off-topic and should be a basic education to avoid such a silly argument.
I don’t mind paying tax, I’m helping build roads and to keep us safe. If you don’t like the system then vote for a party or person that would change the system to match your values. If the system is hard to change then organise to erect change through another mechanism, like a lobby group, union, alternative business structure, professional organisation, etc.
My problem would be the delivery company charging a lot to handle the tax. If Purism could find a delivery partner that would be the lowest cost for them and us, that would be the best outcome.
We built roads in America and had an army before taxes so the building roads argument doesn’t work either. Bottom line is taxation is theft, I’m leaving it at that and you can argue till you’re blue in the face but it’ll never change my mind. As far as th VAT thing, a clear example of purism dropping the ball once again.
You avoid the issue here. Of course I meant that the countries collect VAT. The use of “EU” is obviously schematic and refers to EU countries.
Yes we should pay taxes. But avoiding to discuss the fact that there are tons of tax exemptions it just implies you agree to avoid taxes unless a poor person wants to buy an L5. Then your ideas are very strict and unyielding.
Again: I just bought two fonts from myfonts.com and payed no VAT in EU.
About countries buying from countries: It is not as you say. When you work in the public sector and your monthly salary is, say, 3000 euros (from taxation money! as you write) the 1000 euros is withheld for tax, and you get 2000. So this is normal. I agree. But when the money from taxation go to F16s then no VAT should be paid according to you. In one case a poor or middle class person makes profit and tax must be paid, but when the weapon factory makes profit we forget about VAT. Sweet.
On Purism: I payed for both development and hw. Since the results of their research is public domain there should be no VAT on this. If I am wrong then you agree that we should not send funds to research institutions for cancer, diabetes etc because the “poor” EU countries do not collect VAT from this…
I will stop here. you may of course answer, you will not convince me. And as I see you will not convince others too. Strictness and justice are two completely different things.
@antonis, thanks! And as well, you brought new word (noun): STRICTNESS (of someone) within this Forum, I searched for its definition here, internally, as of what it means today (https://puri.sm/faq/#faq-Whatarethephonespecs):
Do you ship worldwide?
Short answer: Yes.
Longer answer: We can ship pretty much anywhere, and offer free international shipping, but the customer is responsible for customs clearing/duties, and local taxation. International shipments may be subject to customs processing and additional charges, customs policies vary from country to country, therefore you should contact your local customs office for more information. When customs clearance procedures are required, it can cause delays in arrival. If you can normally order product from the U.S. and have it shipped to you, then you can order from Purism in the same manner.
How are the devices shipped?
By FedEX Ground in USA, and USPS Priority Mail International or DHL for international shipments. You can also pay for something faster, leave a note when ordering and contact ops(at)puri.sm. Email confirmation with tracking number is sent on the day of shipping.
P.S. No comment on my part.
USPS? 
um in case you didn’t want to sound so general i apologize beforehand … that being said … we pay taxes because we NEED Caesar to do his job NOT because we LOVE paying taxes …
Having to pay VAT is a bit of a nuisance, but nothing unexpected. Paying DHL a bizarre amount of money for a shipping process that was supposed to be “free” is quite unexpected, and frankly unacceptable.
I do hope Purism comes up with a decent alternative.
Seems like there is enough experience in this thread to put together a best-practice for Purism when shipping Librem 5s to EU.
Has anyone considered putting together a discussion to collaborate on how Purism can best ship to EU (provider, placement of accurate invoice - showing date of purchase, amount paid, etc.)
I would do it, but unfortunately, I am in US.
It was always my expectation that on top of the purchase price with Purism (which includes shipping), I would have to pay
If I choose to buy from a vendor in another country, I make a decision as to whether the benefit of that specific item outweighs the cost, hassle and delay of the above three bullet points. So, yes, I am willing to pay those additional costs in this case. Do I enjoy or look forward to paying those additional costs? No! (although I do look forward to receiving my Librem 5 )
I’ve bought hardware from niche sellers overseas quite a few times before and always had to pay the above. So I wasn’t expecting it to be any different this time. Maybe that is the problem here: expectations.
Yes, and that could happen if the shipment volumes are there to justify the effort.
That is a whole different ball game. For purely digital goods, there is no port of arrival to tax the goods at - and so it comes down to whether the vendor sells enough goods to your country to justify the government in your country going after that vendor.
If we are talking about Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Adobe etc., it is worth your government’s time to put pressure on the company to collect the VAT up front (at the time of purchase, at the appropriate rate - and then to give the VAT to the government). If we are talking about a foreign small-time individual digital goods seller, not so much.
Very correct! Therefore I was thinking of what @spaetz wrote within his post scriptum input and link, but I, kind of, disagree with his statement “so I don’t think they have a European base”, yet only if there are existing some secret plans to reactivate previous cooperation! Likewise, as I know nothing about if there will be any change of current course of action coming from Purism’s logistics/operations, I might continue to speculate on why it is said something like this above, other then this is currently the fact that we, buyers, need to accept as such.
Also, it might be that someone knows more about background of mid February ending of cooperation between kernel concepts GmbH online shop and/with Purism (or vice versa) by having some kind of relevant information (that no one as outsider needs to know), but I know nothing about, and none really cares about, IMHO, other than that the recovery of such cooperation might have, for some of us within EU, preferred outcome; kind of come back in time of Evergreen’s shipping stage. Even if only for those that would like to buy Librem 5 within EU and receive it within the very same week of actual payment in advance (as we might pay for our VAT there as well, for the pre-ordered ones, if I understand related economics law correctly, but this might easily be just another idealistic opinion). Anyway, within FLOSS Shop DE link that @spaetz provided is still useful information about delivery of Purism’s products and translated it would sound (approximately) like this:
“In the course of a reorganization of the customer service and the opening of the new Customer and Shipping Center in Carlsbad, CA, USA the Purism management decided that all Purism’s devices should be ordered exclusively via the Purism Web Shop.”
“Our tip: The additional charge for delivery with FedEX is worthy (recommended to be used), as FedEx takes care about the registration (Zollanmeldung) with nearby (responsible for the particular delivery) Customs Office.”
P.S. Alike to what @nicole.faerber wrote to us; I “sincerely hope” too, that Purism “will have this sorted out until” they “start shipping the phone. If plans work out, then” they “will be able to ship from a place which has a EU VAT tax ID”.
I do not talk about the current state. I know I will be forced to pay unreasonable high tax. I am talking about ethics because other persons talked about cheating, which I admit was very annoying if not insulting.
So I do not care if the business is large or small.
Besides all this EU talk (sorry i don’t understand the EU regulations i just know the taxes suck), will you post a video @cma on the performance and software when you get it (i understand if you’re not, people have lives and work)
About best practice for Purism: I think that the best is to be honest. Honest in the philosophical sense and not in the EU-bureaucrats weird sense. By this I mean that they must separate the cost for hardware and software since the only thing I will own after I get L5 is the hw. The packages that will go through customs should declare a true value for the hw only! Because I pay to own. If I do not own (software or license) I should not pay tax.
This is THE difference from Apple products on this issue. For them you pay for owning both the hw and a license to use their software.
Since the software work of Purism is public domain we should not pay tax for it.
Something more about future work. Purism must seek tax exemption from IRS for money that comes to the company for software development. If you think that this is outrageous I am ready to tell you that it is not the first time that IRS will accept this. EXACTLY the same has happened with tug (the TeX Users Group). Check their site. Money that is given from users or institutions that goes to the development of their public domain software (latex3 etc) are tax exempt from the IRS.
So please do not compare Purism with Apple…
Hmm, IMO we are getting both, software at the first pace, on top of the appropriate HW, and I agree with you that separation in terms of VAT would be nice thing to be recognized (being authored FOSS) within future invoices for EU customers. Here is why I think software is the kind of key, abbreviated, as within my previous post link is to be recognized:
Furthermore, “Purism authored and released …”
“The Corporation shall be devoted to ensuring the security, privacy, and freedom of the users of its products, and the hardware and software offered by Purism shall conform to the philosophy of the Free Software movement (the “General Social Purpose”).” IMO, nowadays my money cannot have something like this for free of charge (by not seeing there is an exclusive separation of offered hardware and software, by guessing that software actually is the base for choosing the appropriate hardware, to develop, to work hard on top of it, as a sum, to make it usable for individuals - in order to be able to communicate in the way that respects …), I think so and certainly agree (encourage Purism to continue to live up to above statement) as not being aware that somewhere else exists something like this, to their products they offer related, within the World we live in.
“Not just for us as a company, but for everyone concerned about issues of privacy, security, and user freedom. The Librem 5 represents years of work, building the software and hardware required to make this phone a reality.” What it means years of work (explaining the difference / path that Purism follows) is, in a related issues mature and experienced way (that counts), kindly brought up here:
I’ve seen this guys recent videos regarding Linux phones and one thing he brought up that’s not well known is the pinephone has been in development for longer than the librem so their current state of development being much more progressed makes sense from that perspective. If librem and pinephone had started development at the same time they might be closer in state to a final product.
In addition, in one of his previous videos “Comparing Linux Phones: Librem 5 and Pinephone” he said about Librem 5: “This phone is not just a Linux phone, but it addressed the main concern of privacy! It is the only phone where the issue of privacy was well thought out and advanced as a goal.”
That’s all well and good but some people just want mainline Linux on a mobile device, hence why I believe the pinephone will be a more popular device.
Yeah then they could buy the pinephone, have an up-to-date kernel for maybe a month or two and then they’ll never get newer kernels because of the f***** Allwinner SoC. 