I want to support the Librem 5 at the $599 level… But I’m new to crowd-funding, And am unaware of what exactly I’ committing to.
Do you take my money regardless of whether or not you hit your funding goal ?
If you fail to deliver the product for foreseen reasons, will a refund be issued?
For Tax - Am I purchasing a phone for $599, or am i making a $599 donation, and receiving a free-gift?
Hypothetical situation…The Librem 5 is completed, and actually sells to the public for RRP $1,599.
When my device is delivered, will the tax man charge me…
a) Tax on postage and packaging only - The device was a gift.
b) Tax on $599.
c) Tax on $1,599
My Librem 13 was treated by the UK tax authorities as a sale whose price was the amount of the “contribution”.
Regarding refund if no go: Read to the bottom of the page and you will see a pledge to refund if the Librem 5 does not go ahead. Not sure where these refunds would be in the creditor queue if there was a bankruptcy.
@cds, if you choose to pay via credit card, we’ll charge it when campaign reaches its goal. If goal is not reached, your card won’t be charged. Payments in bitcoins are charged as soon as transaction is confirmed.
As for the tax, gifts can only be sent between individuals. Even if we could send it as a gift, you would still have to pay VAT and customs duty, since you need to pay VAT for any gift worth more than £39 and customs duty if it’s worth more than £135.
@goran-stevanovic
Just to clarify…
Again… Hypothetical…
IF the Librem 5 was such a huge success, you decided to celebrate by making the first 10 devices out of solid gold, and i was lucky enough to be sent one of theese solid gold devices…
I would have to pay VAT and customs duty on a gold brick.?
Or do i only pay VAT and customs on my $599 ?
What im getting at here, is that we dont know what the final product will be worth when you come to ship in 2 years… If you made a mistake, and the final product sells for a much, much higher price, The tax is going to be very painful.
@cds, sorry, I forgot to clarify that. You would have to pay customs duty and VAT on $599. We would send an invoice with the price you paid, not with the current price at a time of shipping.
A “temporary authorization” did take place on my credit card to verify my payment method, but then dropped off after a couple days. Don’t want anyone to be surprised…
Looking forward to a successful campaign and product! Thank you guys.
I pledged twice in order to get 2 Librem5 phones.
Here in Norway I will have to pay 25% VAT of the total price incl. shipping as well as $30 for each packet in handling fee.
So, for me, it would be preferable if they get sent together as one.
Also note that that the custom declaration must explicitly state the price of the shipping (e.g. $0), else the Norwegian customs get creative and add 25% to an estimated shipping fee.
I write this here as I guess it applies to others as well.
By the way:
The phone looks amazing and I wish Purism the best of luck.
The freedom and kill switches reminds me of neo900.org, which sadly has faced an unfair amount of challenges and thus are still not finished.
The Pyra seems more advanced – although still not ready for a while.
But they have nice updates and it looks promising so far. But a total different user scenario than librem 5.
I’m also from EU and have some questions about differences in shipping Librem from USA and from German reseller. I’m pretty sure that VAT (23% in my case) will be added. But will be the US tax deduct? Or we’ll have to pay both US and EU taxes? What about customs? In my country if someone buys phone from USA for individual use (s)he has to pay only VAT tax, but entrepreneur has to pay also customs. So in worst case, taking the fact that shipping is free worldwide, total costs when shipping from Germany may be more expensive then in the case of shipping from USA. Does anyone could clarify this situation (especially if someone from reseller is reading).
I’m almost certain that you don’t have to pay an extra fee. How should that happen? The reseller sends the package from the EU to the EU. If a fee would be added, then it would apply to everybody (even for Germans), because the reseller has to import the devices.
However, “free world-wide shipping” to me implies that this will not happen. It means that Purism makes a bit more profit from US citizens and a bit less from others.