Re: OT: can I send CDs by mail to Germany?
On 24 Apr 2005, martin f krafft wrote:
>also sprach Laura Melton <debian-user@niceperson.org> [2005.04.23.2320 +0200]:
>> I have done this experiment. When I was studying in Germany, my
>> mother (in the USA) mailed me a CD that I had bought and had
>> delivered to my home address by mail. She sent it to me and
>> mailed it "commercial merchandise," which it actually wasn't.
>> Nevertheless, the German customs office held it and made me pay
>> tax for it.
>
>What else did you expect? This is 100% the way it should be. You can
>reclaim the VAT you paid in the US, but since the physical location
>of the "merchandise" is Germany, that's where you will pay VAT
>(16%).
>
>If you are peeved about that, then you cannot be helped.
If I had ordered something from the U.S. to be mailed to me in Germany,
then yes, it should have been labeled commercial. I would not have
objected to paying tax on it then. I was not peeved at the German
government or customs officials, who were just doing their jobs.
What peeved me was that it was *mislabeled*. My mother was mailing me
something which at that point already belonged to me, and I shouldn't
have had to pay tax on it.
It wasn't a big deal. I paid the tax, which was less than 5DM
anyway. The point of my email was to explain what happens with
commercial-merchandise mail upon which one needs to pay tax in
Germany.
Laura
--
ASCII silly question, get a silly ANSI.
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