Message from UPS to our European Super Deluxe Customers

ScrapeMySky

So I got an invoice from UPS today, along with the paperwork from german customs. And there are a few pretty interesting things in there. First, they really did only charge taxes for the 100$ listed in the 10C invoice. But buried somewhere in the 8 pages they sent me, under the calculations for the vinyl (they did calculate VAT for the various parts of the SDE seperately) they listet shipping costs of 94 Euros (And ONLY there)! And, this being Germany, I also had to pay the good old 19% VAT for this. Together with UPS fees, this amounts to a considerable part of the 45 euros I had to pay the UPS guys. Now I'm wondering if I got this right, and if so, how the hell they came up with this, because the 10C invoice they sent along doesn't say a word about shipping costs. Did anyone else from Germany get this? This really confuses me, because apparently almost all of us europeans had to pay a lot to the UPS guys and therefore it doesn't really seem like a mistake to me... And just to make this clear. Apparently, at least in my case, this seems to have been mainly a customs thing.

reisgericht

ScrapeMySky wrote:

So I got an invoice from UPS today, along with the paperwork from german customs. And there are a few pretty interesting things in there. First, they really did only charge taxes for the 100$ listed in the 10C invoice. But buried somewhere in the 8 pages they sent me, under the calculations for the vinyl (they did calculate VAT for the various parts of the SDE seperately) they listet shipping costs of 94 Euros (And ONLY there)! And, this being Germany, I also had to pay the good old 19% VAT for this. Together with UPS fees, this amounts to a considerable part of the 45 euros I had to pay the UPS guys. Now I'm wondering if I got this right, and if so, how the hell they came up with this, because the 10C invoice they sent along doesn't say a word about shipping costs. Did anyone else from Germany get this? This really confuses me, because apparently almost all of us europeans had to pay a lot to the UPS guys and therefore it doesn't really seem like a mistake to me... And just to make this clear. Apparently, at least in my case, this seems to have been mainly a customs thing.

Unfortunately, you are correct. I am in Austria and paid 41 EUR import tax. I just spoke to the tax authorities and the way that this is calculated is the sum of the value of goods (100USD = about 78 EUR) plus various "adjustment fees". These include shipping costs REPORTED BY UPS and other as yet undisclosed (at least to me) fees. In my case the shipping costs were calculated to be 87 EUR, and the additional fee of 37 EUR was added for good measure. Now, of course the 50 USD shipping cost charged by 10C is NOT the one used for this calculation (esp. since they did not include it in the invoice!). If you go to UPS and check the costs for sending a package from Seattle to Europe with the weight and size and the type of shipping you get something like 120 USD - which comes close to the 87 EUR charged by the tax authorities.

So, in the end what this means is that for import tax I paid 78 EUR (value of goods) + 87 EUR (shipping costs) + 37 EUR (pocket money for tax authorities) * 20% = 41 EUR. Add to this the 151 EUR (190 USD) I paid for the box, and I paid a total of 192 EUR (242 USD)!!! Comparing this to the approx. 100 EUR I can get this online in Europe, makes this the last time I order something from 10C. I understand they can't influence the tax imposed, but this is just not a viable place for Europeans to buy stuff from, when we end up paying double (or more, considering US got free shipping).

What 10C could do, however is offer Europeans a European distribution point (a European 10C shop in other words) where goods are shipped from somewhere within the EU and saves us having to pay high shipping costs and ridiculous (albeit not 10C's fault) import taxes. Otherwise, I'm afraid they will lose out on the European market. In the mean time, we Europeans will have to lose out on the great stuff 10C offers.

GE161055

reisgericht wrote:

What 10C could do, however is offer Europeans a European distribution point (a European 10C shop in other words) where goods are shipped from somewhere within the EU and saves us having to pay high shipping costs and ridiculous (albeit not 10C's fault) import taxes. Otherwise, I'm afraid they will lose out on the European market. In the mean time, we Europeans will have to lose out on the great stuff 10C offers.

You are right!

jmk

GE161055 wrote:

reisgericht wrote:

What 10C could do, however is offer Europeans a European distribution point (a European 10C shop in other words) where goods are shipped from somewhere within the EU and saves us having to pay high shipping costs and ridiculous (albeit not 10C's fault) import taxes. Otherwise, I'm afraid they will lose out on the European market. In the mean time, we Europeans will have to lose out on the great stuff 10C offers.

You are right!

Another thumbs up for a European 10C shop. For example The Raconteurs ship a Stylophone (pocket electronic organ) https://raconteurs.kungfunation.com/ind ... b533351e1e worth $40 from the UK to European customers. They still send t-shirts etc. from the US to Europe.

How is it with taxes if you pay the product to a company in the US with US dollars and it ships from a European distributor to an EU-country? I believe it should be without taxes. This probably depends on how they would organize the whole thing, I mean if they would start a European Ten Club shop or just a European distribution point.

Please, Ten Club, consider a European 10 shop. This way you won't loose all European customers for future re-issues.

GE161055

jmk wrote:

Another thumbs up for a European 10C shop. For example The Raconteurs ship a Stylophone (pocket electronic organ) https://raconteurs.kungfunation.com/ind ... b533351e1e worth $40 from the UK to European customers. They still send t-shirts etc. from the US to Europe.

How is it with taxes if you pay the product to a company in the US with US dollars and it ships from a European distributor to an EU-country?

Please, Ten Club, consider a European 10 shop. This way you won't loose all European customers for future re-issues.

You are definitely right!

dimitrispearljam

hello from greece to the idea for a european 10c store,,,!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

redrock

reisgericht wrote:

What 10C could do, however is offer Europeans a European distribution point .

Is there not already something like that in place? Do we not get stuff with a Swedish postmark?

surfanddestroy

Usually yes but not with this set, I think that is why I have never had to pay customs for 10c stuff before.

jmk

redrock wrote:

reisgericht wrote:

What 10C could do, however is offer Europeans a European distribution point .

Is there not already something like that in place? Do we not get stuff with a Swedish postmark?

Is there? I doubt that there's a Ten Club distribution center in Sweden although Ten Club has used Swedish Post. Not sure, though. The customs in every EU country would anyway see that the package came from and was bought from Ten Club in Seattle, USA and then they charge the VAT according to that if it's valuable enough.

I believe we haven't been asked to pay VAT on Ten Club orders before is because the value of the orders haven't reached the critical value of VAT being collected, (and this value depends on each EU country's regulations).

dimitrispearljam

jmk wrote:

redrock wrote:

reisgericht wrote:

What 10C could do, however is offer Europeans a European distribution point .

Is there not already something like that in place? Do we not get stuff with a Swedish postmark?

Is there? I doubt that there's a Ten Club distribution center in Sweden although Ten Club has used Swedish Post. Not sure, though. The customs in every EU country would anyway see that the package came from and was bought from Ten Club in Seattle, USA and then they charge the VAT according to that if it's valuable enough.

I believe we haven't been asked to pay VAT on Ten Club orders before is because the value of the orders haven't reached the critical value of VAT being collected, (and this value depends on each EU country's regulations).

dimitrispearljam

jmk wrote:

redrock wrote:

reisgericht wrote:

What 10C could do, however is offer Europeans a European distribution point .

Is there not already something like that in place? Do we not get stuff with a Swedish postmark?

Is there? I doubt that there's a Ten Club distribution center in Sweden although Ten Club has used Swedish Post. Not sure, though. The customs in every EU country would anyway see that the package came from and was bought from Ten Club in Seattle, USA and then they charge the VAT according to that if it's valuable enough.

I believe we haven't been asked to pay VAT on Ten Club orders before is because the value of the orders haven't reached the critical value of VAT being collected, (and this value depends on each EU country's regulations).

i order in the past orders up to 300$ but to vat ,no taxis,,but with post office,,ups do always the same for make profit,,in my invoice of deluxe edition the write in hand (ups)
shipping 45 euros,next to 100$ ten club have in invoice,,,so the custom stop it,,
and i pay 130 euros extra,,260 for both i order..they are thiefs,,,65 euros the payment for the employee of ups that make the taxis clearance,,the vat to my country?26 euros from the 130 total cost..they stole our money,,,

redrock

jmk wrote:

I doubt that there's a Ten Club distribution center in Sweden although Ten Club has used Swedish Post.

Not a distribution centre per se, but they do use Swedish post - one way or the other when they have loads to send out I guess. Send one big bugger to Sweden where they open up the box with individual packages ready and send them off to us (just making assumptions here). Having a proper distribution centre with stock, staff, etc. would be a costly thing and most probably not a very viable business option.

ScrapeMySky

So I guess this whole issue boils down to us thinking they should go back to doing this the way they did it before, right? Because if they did that, I wouldn't hesitate for a second to buy from 10C again. The swedish detour took a little longer but at least I was never charged any additional fees.

reisgericht

ScrapeMySky wrote:

So I guess this whole issue boils down to us thinking they should go back to doing this the way they did it before, right? Because if they did that, I wouldn't hesitate for a second to buy from 10C again. The swedish detour took a little longer but at least I was never charged any additional fees.

I'm not entirely sure about the Swedish postmark - I can imagine they do that with print mailouts like the newsletters, but I ave never paid attention to the postmark to be honest. I only know that recently I made an order, but didn't have to pay import tax - probably due to the value falling below the limit. All my older orders over the last years, though, I had to pay - for bootlegs for example. This was always an issue I had, which is why I kept my 10C orders to a minimum.

This time, however, it was the shipping costs which really inflated the tax. If, say, the shipping costs would have really been 50 USD, the tax would have been proportionately lower. The real shipping costs were around 120 USD though because it was heavy, large and expedited by UPS. The logic why we as taxpayers have to pay higher import taxes because we receive the goods faster and by UPS (which has absolutely nothing to do with the value of the goods being imported) completely fails me, but I guess we're not supposed to understand taxes anyway.

Anyway, coming back to the distribution point, I agree that having staff, stocks etc would probably add too much cost to the 10C, and I am by no means an expert in these things. However, I believe there must be a workable solution which could be investigated - like shipping a container or large consignment to a third party distributor who would then send it on from within the EU (the origin of the goods is irrelevant, the customer only pays if the shipment was made from outside the EU). Or, maybe it would be possible to have some items produced locally (tshirts printed, cds and vinyl pressed within the EU). Whatever the solution, I'm sure it would, in the end, benefit both the 10C (increased European sales) and its customers (happy customers who paid a fair price).

ScrapeMySky

reisgericht wrote:

ScrapeMySky wrote:

So I guess this whole issue boils down to us thinking they should go back to doing this the way they did it before, right? Because if they did that, I wouldn't hesitate for a second to buy from 10C again. The swedish detour took a little longer but at least I was never charged any additional fees.

I'm not entirely sure about the Swedish postmark - I can imagine they do that with print mailouts like the newsletters, but I ave never paid attention to the postmark to be honest. I only know that recently I made an order, but didn't have to pay import tax - probably due to the value falling below the limit. All my older orders over the last years, though, I had to pay - for bootlegs for example. This was always an issue I had, which is why I kept my 10C orders to a minimum.

This time, however, it was the shipping costs which really inflated the tax. If, say, the shipping costs would have really been 50 USD, the tax would have been proportionately lower. The real shipping costs were around 120 USD though because it was heavy, large and expedited by UPS. The logic why we as taxpayers have to pay higher import taxes because we receive the goods faster and by UPS (which has absolutely nothing to do with the value of the goods being imported) completely fails me, but I guess we're not supposed to understand taxes anyway.

Anyway, coming back to the distribution point, I agree that having staff, stocks etc would probably add too much cost to the 10C, and I am by no means an expert in these things. However, I believe there must be a workable solution which could be investigated - like shipping a container or large consignment to a third party distributor who would then send it on from within the EU (the origin of the goods is irrelevant, the customer only pays if the shipment was made from outside the EU). Or, maybe it would be possible to have some items produced locally (tshirts printed, cds and vinyl pressed within the EU). Whatever the solution, I'm sure it would, in the end, benefit both the 10C (increased European sales) and its customers (happy customers who paid a fair price).

I'm afraid producing stuff locally over here would probably not be profitable due to the low numbers of production of any limited items. And at the end of the day the guys at 10C are still just running a business. But again, I never had to pay any VAT on anything I've ordered before. So for everything in a lower price range the old method is absoluteley fine with me. But that's just me. And I guess a container would have to go through customs too, wouldn't it? But I'm sure they'll figure something out...

Pegasus

swedish post being used does not avoid customs, it's just another mailing company like USPS and you still can get taxed because the shipment actually comes from outside the EU (the fact it might transit through a Euro hub is irrelevant, for example I'm pretty certain if you looked at the exact tracking for UPS, the products going to Greece have transited through a European hub, possibly in Germany or UK, before Greece)

having a local store probably would cut a bit on shipping (though not necessarily much, epsecially with teh weird way 10c charges it by value rather than weight) and you'd avoid the FEE (the UPS or post office one for collecting tax), but not the VAT itself (on the contrary it would HAVE TO be paid on each and every item no matter how small), which at the minimum in the EU would be 15%, depending on which country they use (and import duty on top, which is one you didn't pay as an individual, but a company has to).

since you'd need someone to be employed in Europe to deal with all this, I'm not sure there'd be much saving done, and in fact for small orders, there wouldn't be any since they pass right now without tax.

basically, you order a T-shirt, if it's shipped from:
US: $20 + $11 shipping= $31. that's all since $20 is not enough to pay tax
Europe: $20 + $3.70 (15% VAT+ lets say 3% import duty) + (estimate) $5 local shipping + $3 bulk shipping from US-Europe (I've actually no idea how much it'd be, but with pre-orders, ie stuff we want fast, it'd be probably more) = $31.7
And that's not counting extra cost of paying someone locally for dealing with it (though I apply for the job should they want to do it )

so for expensive/heavy stuff like the boxset, yeah, or if you do a big order, but everything else, not really worth it.
Those bands that have stores in both (and most actually use an outside shop for one of them, like QOTSA), the price is generally the same in the end, what you save on shipping you lose with VAT.

reisgericht

Pegasus wrote:

swedish post being used does not avoid customs, it's just another mailing company like USPS and you still can get taxed because the shipment actually comes from outside the EU (the fact it might transit through a Euro hub is irrelevant, for example I'm pretty certain if you looked at the exact tracking for UPS, the products going to Greece have transited through a European hub, possibly in Germany or UK, before Greece)

having a local store probably would cut a bit on shipping (though not necessarily much, epsecially with teh weird way 10c charges it by value rather than weight) and you'd avoid the FEE (the UPS or post office one for collecting tax), but not the VAT itself (on the contrary it would HAVE TO be paid on each and every item no matter how small), which at the minimum in the EU would be 15%, depending on which country they use (and import duty on top, which is one you didn't pay as an individual, but a company has to).

since you'd need someone to be employed in Europe to deal with all this, I'm not sure there'd be much saving done, and in fact for small orders, there wouldn't be any since they pass right now without tax.

basically, you order a T-shirt, if it's shipped from:
US: $20 + $11 shipping= $31. that's all since $20 is not enough to pay tax
Europe: $20 + $3.70 (15% VAT+ lets say 3% import duty) + (estimate) $5 local shipping + $3 bulk shipping from US-Europe (I've actually no idea how much it'd be, but with pre-orders, ie stuff we want fast, it'd be probably more) = $31.7
And that's not counting extra cost of paying someone locally for dealing with it (though I apply for the job should they want to do it )

so for expensive/heavy stuff like the boxset, yeah, or if you do a big order, but everything else, not really worth it.
Those bands that have stores in both (and most actually use an outside shop for one of them, like QOTSA), the price is generally the same in the end, what you save on shipping you lose with VAT.

You lost me a bit on your calculation, but I think you are assuming that the 20 USD is the net price and that the corporate export/import tax would entirely be passed on to the consumer. I was thinking more on the lines of Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.de pricing of around 120 for the box set, which already includes the tax, any import duties (as the box comes from the states anyway), shipping and any markup which Amazon makes money on. Of course I realise they have synergies of scale, but that is why I suggested they use a third party distributor who would have these as well.

But anyway, this is all up to 10C to figure out. At the moment, it just doesn't make sense to order more expensive items from them - and I have to add, that as long as they use UPS, you will never know what the limit is, as the inflated shipping costs (which 10C did not mention when ordering) gets added to the calculation base for import tax - so for example, if you order 50 USD worth, and UPS shipping is another 60 USD, it could be that you go over the limit (can't remember now what the limit is) and have to pay tax, where you might assume that the 50 USD was below the limit.

ScrapeMySky

Actually, I would already be ok with not having to pay twice as much for the next boxset too.
A little extra for shipping to anywhere outside the U.S. is ok, as far as I'm concerned. I think with another carrier it could have been made a lot easier and cheaper for most of us. But that might just be a faulty impression i got from how this issue was handled and my general dislike of UPS

Pegasus

reisgericht wrote:

You lost me a bit on your calculation, but I think you are assuming that the 20 USD is the net price and that the corporate export/import tax would entirely be passed on to the consumer. I was thinking more on the lines of Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.de pricing of around 120 for the box set, which already includes the tax, any import duties (as the box comes from the states anyway), shipping and any markup which Amazon makes money on. Of course I realise they have synergies of scale, but that is why I suggested they use a third party distributor who would have these as well.

But anyway, this is all up to 10C to figure out. At the moment, it just doesn't make sense to order more expensive items from them - and I have to add, that as long as they use UPS, you will never know what the limit is, as the inflated shipping costs (which 10C did not mention when ordering) gets added to the calculation base for import tax - so for example, if you order 50 USD worth, and UPS shipping is another 60 USD, it could be that you go over the limit (can't remember now what the limit is) and have to pay tax, where you might assume that the 50 USD was below the limit.

actually, the sets sold in Europe were made in Europe (says so on the box), not imported. and I'm pretty sure amazon hardly makes anything on them at the current price.

the custom-free allowance (which is £18 so about $27) applies to the product alone. IF the product goes over the limit, then the tax is applied to the postage as well, but the postage doesn't count for the tax-free allowance.
So if you ordered something worth $25 and they had $50 shipping (and they do if you chose courier on Amazon for example), you won't pay tax at all. But if it's something worth $50 with $25 shipping, you'll pay tax on $75.

jmk

Pegasus wrote:

the custom-free allowance (which is £18 so about $27) applies to the product alone. IF the product goes over the limit, then the tax is applied to the postage as well, but the postage doesn't count for the tax-free allowance.
So if you ordered something worth $25 and they had $50 shipping (and they do if you chose courier on Amazon for example), you won't pay tax at all. But if it's something worth $50 with $25 shipping, you'll pay tax on $75.

Ok, so this is the regulations in Great Britain, but it differs depending on which EU-country you live in. As I wrote earlier in this thread, in Finland VAT on products bought from outside the EU is only collected if the VAT part of the product + shipping costs is more than 10 euros. As we have a VAT of 22% on CDs etc. the value of the PRODUCT + SHIPPING COSTS must be over 45 euros for us to be asked to pay the VAT. For us it doesn't matter how big part of the total price the product is and how much the shipping is.