At 08:09 PM 6/18/2004 +0200, you wrote:
>Dwayne Reid wrote :
>
> > >If you buy from the US (or the other way around), you could
> > >always make two paypal transactions...
> >
> > I believe that is illegal.  It is also just plain immoral.
>
>Sure, and I would *never* do this myself, of course !
>It was just a thought...
>
>In Sweden, any non-EU import is charged with 25% VAT
>calculated on the total (price + shipping) cost. It must have
>a total value above aprox 20-25 USD.
>
>VAT = the US FST, I'd guess...
>
>Jan-Erik.

FST? The US is one of the few developed countries without a
Federal sales tax. There are state taxes (which range from 0% to about
8 or 9%), which also in rate by county, and applicability is not uniform
from state-to-state on certain items. Mostly applied just to goods, not
services. State sales taxes are NOT VAT type taxes, and hence add hidden
costs to manufactured goods.

Canada has PST (Provincial sales taxes) (which vary similarly to US state
taxes, except that they are uniform within each of the 10 provinces),
and there is also a Federal VAT called GST which is applicable to
goods and services. In some Provinces the two taxes are harmonized into a
15% HST. Generally businesses are exempt PST on goods used directly
(but not indirectly) in production, similar to the US, and essentially
are refunded GST on all input to taxable or export goods (or it's applied
as a credit against invoiced tax to be remitted).

I imagine a European would find it a bit surprising to buy something
with a price tag of $150 (in Canada) and have to come up with $172.50,
rather than paying a nice even EUR200 just as the tag says. ;-)

Best regards,

Spehro Pefhany --"it's the network..."            "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

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