David Cameron has unveiled what he calls the biggest trade deal in human history. The European Union is negotiating a treaty with the US that will allow all citizens of all EU member states to trade duty-free. Every day, $3 billion worth of trade takes place between the US and the EU, on which we pay customs duties. According to Brussels, the average duty is approximately 4%, but here it is good to remember that we are talking about the average duty, which is different for each type of goods. In the case of electronics, the CLO is actually higher, moreover, it is not calculated from the dollar amount that we paid for the goods, but this amount is converted to Euros 1:1 and subsequently to crowns in the Czech Republic.
This means that if you order goods from the USA, first the value of the goods, which should be correctly indicated on the package, is converted from dollars to Euros, and then the customs duty is calculated from this amount and VAT is added. In most cases, the goods will actually cost you more than if you buy directly in the Czech Republic/SR. In addition, if the value of the goods is not obvious, the customs officers proceed according to the tables, which are often out of date and the value of the goods is greatly overestimated compared to the actual price for which you bought the goods. The agreement between the USA and the European Union began to be negotiated two days ago by the political leaders of the eight most powerful countries in the world, i.e. the so-called G8, who are acting in Northern Ireland.
"This is important and very good news. A definitive agreement could be reached within 12 to 18 months," said the office of British Prime Minister David Cameron. The question is whether, after paying VAT and deducting the one-year warranty that the seller simply will not give us on goods in the US, it still makes sense to buy in the US even when we do not have to pay customs duties. For example, if we take the price of a basic MacBook Air, which is $999 in the USA and we convert it to Euros, from which we calculate VAT, we get an amount very similar to the one for which MacBook Air we buy in the Czech Republic/Slovakia.
*Source: m.hnonline.sk
With the abolition of customs duties, it would finally be possible to buy cheap electronics
A laptop in the USA costs 1000 dollars, and if I want the same in our country, it costs 1000-1200€
For mobile phones and other products from abroad, the duty is more like 10/15%, I don't know the exact number
But if an ipad is released in the USA for 500 usd, then in Slovakia it is for 500 €, if customs were not paid, then we might get to 480 € or less
For iPhones and macbookoh, it would be a huge difference in price, after all, only 20-21 percent is VAT + duty, so from a $650 iPhone, it's $800-850 iphone
And the same Uzbek and a ton of other things that are unavailable here, but there is a high import duty on them
I will add about the price of the iPhone so that it is accurate
in the USA it stands iphone 5 – through apple.com = $650
he stayed with us iphone 5 as new in e-shops = 710€=950 usd, so it is 300 dollars more expensive here,
if I deduct VAT 20% from 650 usd it is 130 usd = that is iphone with VAT it costs 780 dollars/without duty/ = 582€, a good difference though ?? iphone is o minia little €100 cheaper when no duty is paid
Why on earth should I convert the price to EUR? If I release the goods into free circulation in the Czech Republic, the purchase price will of course be converted to crowns according to the current exchange rate. In addition, the cost of transporting the goods (if paid by the buyer) is added to this price.
Well, since they've been talking about it for almost a year, maybe they'll fine-tune it.
Well, the customs duty is not that big, it doesn't cause me much trouble... Rather, the question is whether they will also cancel the VAT, which is 20 percent. If so, it would be nice, and not only for electronics, but also for incredibly cheap cars from the USA, for example the BMW M3 costs 69400 euros here and only 44100 euros in the USA. That's a difference of about 20000 euros.
trooper77
because I'm Slovak, and here we have €
Bull:
so in the USA there are low taxes on electronics from 4-10%, in our country it is exactly 20%, which is a huge difference in price
How can you in your right mind think about abolishing VAT? :-)
iMac I don't mean to cancel VAT in general, but VAT when importing from the USA. You know when you want to buy something from the USA and bring it here, you pay 5 percent duty plus 20 percent VAT on that amount... Actually, you also pay tax in the USA and then VAT here...
Ad VAT - don't forget that prices in the USA are given exclusively without VAT! So if you buy a $1000 laptop in a US store, you'll pay something like $1100 right there. So, when buying from an e-shop from the US to the EU, from where you will pay the price without US VAT, there is nothing "unfair" about adding VAT and there will be no double taxation, in addition there is only a possible duty. If someone buys something in the US in person, then in principle you can get a refund of their VAT as well, so they would only pay VAT once during customs clearance...
Overall, it follows from this that if customs duties were abolished, the end price when importing into the EU would be on average 10% higher than in a brick-and-mortar store in the USA (that's probably the difference in typical VAT) - somewhere it would still be interesting, for some things it would but it wasn't such a coup.
But the advantage would be a decrease in bureaucracy, which could motivate traders to use this channel more, they work with VAT anyway, while customs duty is extra work for them.