This is where i thinks lies the problem. They probably could without any controls but would violate the law. So they have to charge you with the VAT. This is also where i’m not 100% sure, but if it weren’t this way every firm would let customers order the product on the international website and ship it from their local warehouse without taxes. So i’m pretty sure this is not meant to be legally possible. Maybe there is some workaround with the crowd-founding thing.
But yeah would be cool to hear something official.
Edit: I think its more like that it is not possible for purism to import the phones from china or us to the EU without paying VAT in any country.
In fact they can. The VAT must be paid but is deductable for a company (or anyone) with a VAT number. I often buy goods inside EU and the seller can sell it without VAT. The buyer must pay VAT but as I have VAT number it is a fact that I do not pay any VAT. But end consumers without VAT number must pay VAT (in his own country). If an end consumer in Sweden buys a Librem 5 from Germany he must pay German VAT but it is only 19 % while Swedish VAT is 25 % so it is a good idea to have a German reseller. The Purism reseller never pays any VAT (I suppose he has a VAT number).
I’m still not that deep into the topic, but what i read early this day. As an customer without a VAT number, which i think we should assume because it should be the general case, the seller has to do all the VAT stuff. If it is bought form a nother EU county which VAT is applied is depended on the amount the seller sells to customers in other EU countries. Above 35.000 or 100.000 € export to other countries (i don’t know why there was an or in the paragraph) the shop has to pay the VAT of and to the customers country. Under this it’s to be paid in the seller county. I think its to help small businesses with not having to manage all the tax stuff for multiple countries. So it seams not that easy to me.
On the deductible idea this also means they need to do the paper work to get it back and at that point it would be noticed that there were not taxes charge when they gave it to the customers. So i don’t think this is a way the phones could arrive at customers without that some one paid the vat. And one can only deduct from pay taxes so they have to pay any thing to get it back. This would be exactly the amount of taxes they paid for the income of sell the phone to you an giving the charged VAT from the customer further to the country. I they just deliver the phone without charging, they have no income, pay no taxes and can not deduct from anything, which means they eat the VAT for the customer.
Please correct me if i made any mistakes or something seams odd.
It is correct that the seller must add VAT for the customer UNLESS the customer has a EU VAT number (as I have). The seller then pays the VAT to the taxman. The seller should pay exactly the amount he gets from the customer and the VAT is paid to the sellers country. It is also correct that the seller must do the paper work. There are some mechanisms for refunding VAT between countries within EU but I do not know exactly how they work.
I do not know about other countries but here in Finland it is fairly easy to declare the VAT (over the Internet). No details need to be declared (for a small business).
Oh dear… I’m afraid that I can not give you any concrete answer on this yet as we are still figuring out details.
It has already been mentioned here that VAT is the core problem - there is no customs tariff on mobile phones (or laptops for that matter) from USA, but everything has to go though VAT which gets added import as import VAT. Businesses can get this reimbursed, private consumers can not.
So even if we had a Purism Europe branch of some sorts, VAT would clearly need to get collected from private consumers, even if this Purism Europe thing would get it reimbursed after import - but it would also have to pay it again when shipping the devices to consumers since it must not happen that non VAT taxed goods get into consumer circulation. So from my standpoint, even if we had a Purism Europe entity of some sorts we would still need to collect VAT for European customers - either we (Purism) do it or the carrier on behalf of the authorities or they do it themselves at import. There is no way around it.
Since the campaign price was without VAT I’m afraid all backers that live in an area which has requirements on VAT like Europe have to come out of pocket for that. (BTW this is the same for most of this type of crowdfunding campaigns like on Kickstarter etc.).
Once we spin up something in Europe then our shop will automatically, based on the place of fulfillment add appropriate taxes that the appropriate fulfillment facility will then properly declare and pay. So also no saving here, I’m sorry. All savings would mean that Purism would have to pay for all arbitrary taxes and fees in all the different jurisdictions which is of course not possible.
Any time indication on that one, if any at all?
It would be very good to have a German based location especially when it comes to EU legislation, RMA et cetera
Are you saying we have to spend more money because you guys havent found someone in EU to ship yet? Thats bad business. If you ship from the EU I can save money. Every purchase shipping inside the EU is VAT free for me.
You got that wrong, I explained this in great detail. Even if we ship from EU you have to pay VAT, but then we would have had to collect it at time of sales. Now it will be collected at time of shipment through the carrier or directly at the customs office. Payment of VAT is always due, no way around it.
Meaning that if a private person that ordered Librem 5 lives in Luxembourg she or he needs to pay 17% of VAT on top of 599.00 USD, 649.00 USD, etc. (if I understand this here correct). But if I live in some other EU country with 25% or even 27% of VAT it is easy to understand your question because it is relatively big end price difference for any potential buyer living there. IMO, Purism cannot help/change something for better total price even though we are preordering and buying from the first hand/manufacturer (directly - without someone adding warehouse or any other cost/profit in between). If any day soon open source products get small percentage of VAT that would be bright and intelligent authorities decision (showing to the potential buyer that there is difference in VAT cost terms as well). Just one country decision may open and lead this way.
When ordering the phone in 2017, I think we were told that the phones for EU are shipped from EU. So I have been thinking till now that VAT was already collected at time of sales…
Bad News. I have to check why I did think so.
Did someone else understand it this way in 2017?
It is not indicated anywhere that VAT is included. In the final invoice, there is no line for VAT.
But it is true that it would be better to clearly indicate on the product page that prices are tax-exclusive.
Not everyone is used to calculating VAT and invoicing. It is misleading for some people.
I thought the 599 US-$ were the final price, too. I am not used to having to add VAT to prices and since I am a EU resident and shipment was announced to be from Germany I thought I was good to go. That means I have to pay another 100€ when the phone gets delivered. Mehh!
Do I need to add the cost of shipping to my pledge? What about taxes?
We offer free worldwide shipping on orders, so there is no need to add the upfront shipping cost to your preorder (we pay for it).
Please note, however, that shipping insurance, local taxes, customs fees and import duties are still your responsibility as customers. If your shipping address is not in the USA, depending on your country, you may have to pay local import taxes/customs/duty fees, for example; those are imposed by your local government and Purism has no control over this. If you know resellers and distributors in your country that would be interested in working with us to solve this problem, please contact us.
While we cover the initial shipment cost, if you refuse to receive your package after it has shippped (due to duty fees or any other reason, and therefore the carrier sends the package back to us) and you request a reimbursement from us, we will deduct our initial shipping cost (the cost we paid for you as part of the “free shipping”) plus a 10% restocking fee. This includes refused shipments, shipments unclaimed or shipments with issues arising from someone other than original purchaser signature on delivery.
Do you have a German or UK/EU Reseller?
Yes, we have partnered with a German reseller, and will be shipping all German (and hopefully EU orders in general) from Germany.
So, 1. German orders are shipped from Germany, and 2. since they ship from EU, VAT had to be collected at time of sales. This is exactly what I thought until today.
Have you read and understood what I wrote, and what was said in this forum? I quote:
So, 1. German orders are shipped from Germany (see faq), and 2. since they ship from EU, VAT had to be collected at time of sales (see nicole.faerber).
Since it already had to be collected, it is clear, that it won’t be collected again at time of shipment.
