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Living in Norway I find this outrage somewhat amusing. Welcome outside of the EU. That's been standard since forever over here although it's usually the buyer t

by ginko 6y ago

Living in Norway I find this outrage somewhat amusing. Welcome outside of the EU. That's been standard since forever over here although it's usually the buyer that has to pay for processing. A particularly extreme example was an old camera I bought on Ebay from Germany for like 25€. That was well under the 350 kroner limit for imports so I thought i didn't have to pay anything extra other than the relatively high 20€ shipping. Turns out the 350 kroner limit also includes the shipping cost so not only did I have to pay ~6€ VAT but also 200kr(~20€) VAT processing fees taking my 25€ camera to 71€. Norway has now completely done away with the 350kr limit so you always have to pay import tax (mainly to stop the flood of cheap 1€ packages from China). I haven't done many international orders since then but I believe at least Ebay now collects taxes as an intermediary.

meheleventyone 6y ago
It was normal in the UK as well for the receiver to pay import duty and VAT on purchases from outside the UK/EU. The scale of imports meant you could get quite lucky with whether or not you’d actually end up doing so.
magicalhippo 6y ago
> Norway has now completely done away with the 350kr limit so you always have to pay import tax On the flip side, they've introduced a scheme[1] which allows the seller to pay the VAT, so the package can pass through customs using a simplified customs declaration step, so they buyer doesn't have to pay the handling fee. This makes it more predictable for the buyer, and it avoids that jump above 350 NOK. edit: This seem not entirely unlike the MOSS scheme[2] linked in another subthread. [1]: https://www.skatteetaten.no/en/business-and-organisation/vat-and-duties/vat/foreign/e-commerce-voec/ https://www.skatteetaten.no/en/business-and-organisation/vat... [2]: https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/business/vat/modernising-vat-cross-border-ecommerce_en https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/business/vat/modernisi...
merb 6y ago
when I go to the official site https://www.toll.no/ https://www.toll.no/ there it says that there is no import fee/tax for goods from europe. so that means you only need to pay the 25% taxes. and the calculator says 595.69kr when I put 45€ in it (25€ + 20€ shipping) if customs wanted the money from you it was probably because you didn't declare it upfront. if the vendor wanted the money, than you were ripped off.
yokoprime 6y ago
it's much better with the current arrangement imo. Whenever i buy something from e.g. aliexpress, ebay etc VAT is payed and there is no suprise fees.

by ginko 6y ago

meheleventyone 6y ago

It was normal in the UK as well for the receiver to pay import duty and VAT on purchases from outside the UK/EU. The scale of imports meant you could get quite lucky with whether or not you’d actually end up doing so.

magicalhippo 6y ago

> Norway has now completely done away with the 350kr limit so you always have to pay import tax On the flip side, they've introduced a scheme[1] which allows the seller to pay the VAT, so the package can pass through customs using a simplified customs declaration step, so they buyer doesn't have to pay the handling fee. This makes it more predictable for the buyer, and it avoids that jump above 350 NOK. edit: This seem not entirely unlike the MOSS scheme[2] linked in another subthread. [1]: https://www.skatteetaten.no/en/business-and-organisation/vat-and-duties/vat/foreign/e-commerce-voec/ https://www.skatteetaten.no/en/business-and-organisation/vat... [2]: https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/business/vat/modernising-vat-cross-border-ecommerce_en https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/business/vat/modernisi...

merb 6y ago

when I go to the official site https://www.toll.no/ https://www.toll.no/ there it says that there is no import fee/tax for goods from europe. so that means you only need to pay the 25% taxes. and the calculator says 595.69kr when I put 45€ in it (25€ + 20€ shipping) if customs wanted the money from you it was probably because you didn't declare it upfront. if the vendor wanted the money, than you were ripped off.

yokoprime 6y ago

it's much better with the current arrangement imo. Whenever i buy something from e.g. aliexpress, ebay etc VAT is payed and there is no suprise fees.