EU: Import duties on consumer, professional electronic products eliminated.

[goodtofufriday]

1st of July 2016 EU will eliminate import duties (tax) on some of the consumer, professional electronic products. "Most of the products (approximately 50%) mentioned in this agreement will attract a 0% import duty rate upon import into the EU. For other ITA products, import duties will be gradually eliminated over a three-year period, for sensitive products this could be up to seven years."

 

Source: 

https://www.meijburg.com/news/ita-eu-import-duties-on-a-wide-range-of-electronic-products-eliminated-as-of-july-1-2016

https://home.kpmg.com/xx/en/home/insights/2016/04/tnf-eu-import-duties-on-consumer-professional-electronic-products-eliminated.html

 

List is as follows:

 

Quote

The product list for which EU import duties will be eliminated includes:

• Microphones, headphones, earphones, speakers, amplifiers, and their component parts
• MP3/MP4 players, radio tuners, car stereos, and their component parts
• DVD, Blu-ray, and HD players and recorders, and their component parts
• Television cameras, and video cameras, and their component parts
• e-readers
• Medical equipment: sophisticated medical equipment such as scanners, machines for magnetic resonance imaging, tomography or dental care and ophthalmology
• Video games and consoles
• Multi-component integrated circuits (MCOs)
• Aerials and aerial reflectors
• Telecommunication satellites, and their component parts
• Automotive camera modules
• Thermometers and pyrometers
• Instruments for aeronautical and space navigation

 

Genuinely curious if this will help sales at all, or if companies will take advantage of this and keeps the prices of their products the same while taking in what would normally go to tax.

[ZetZet]

prices will go down like 5-10% at best. probably won't change.

[ShoshinUK]

Great news for us Brits if we no longer have to pay the import tax on US stuff - I am always wanting to buy from US sellers but it hardly ever stacks up.

[porina]

I will need to dig into this deeper, but this suggests to me it is only the duty element that is eliminated, not the VAT element which would still be applicable and often forms the bulk of any fees.

[SuperShires]

5 minutes ago, ShoshinUK said:

Great news for us Brits if we no longer have to pay the import tax on US stuff - I am always wanting to buy from US sellers but it hardly ever stacks up.

Something will come along that will screw us over lol

[ChrisCross]

this is actually pretty awesome. because for some stuff prices in europe are stupid. with falling shipping costs we could really save some money here.

now there are no excuses for having massively higher prices in europe.

[porina]

https://www.gov.uk/goods-sent-from-abroad/tax-and-duty

 

If I read the above right, right now you can be charged duty on what you buy (variable), and VAT on top of that. Even if they removed duty, the VAT would still be there. The saving would be whatever the duty was. And for personal imports, expect the ludicrous handling fee charged by whoever delivered it too.

[goodtofufriday]

4 minutes ago, porina said:

https://www.gov.uk/goods-sent-from-abroad/tax-and-duty

 

If I read the above right, right now you can be charged duty on what you buy (variable), and VAT on top of that. Even if they removed duty, the VAT would still be there. The saving would be whatever the duty was. And for personal imports, expect the ludicrous handling fee charged by whoever delivered it too.

Vat still applies. Duty is still active until July, gov site will reflect that.

[vanished]

At first this seems like a god-send for the people of the EU, but I've heard from a lot of people that (for example) buying a 1080 from American and having it shipped over, even with the import fees and all that is still cheaper than buying it locally, so what they really need to fix is the local prices, since this development is just going to make more people import their stuff.

[Kamil]

It's something, but it's still not going to get close to the prices possible in basically-no-taxes land (a.k.a. America).

[WereCat]

It is good move by EU but VAT still does apply. Meaning if I wanted to get one of those sweet Korean monitors UHD 40" for $600 then I would still have to pay 20% tax which would make it $720.

Duties were never such a big deal the main problem is VAT. But oh well. Can't complain much there, it is better than nothing.

[Prysin]

1 hour ago, ShoshinUK said:

Great news for us Brits if we no longer have to pay the import tax on US stuff - I am always wanting to buy from US sellers but it hardly ever stacks up.

until you decide to exit the EU and then get slammed with 100% import and export taxes until your gov manages to cut out a deal with other countries. Deals that can take YEARS of beurocrachy to get done.

[Prysin]

7 minutes ago, WereCat said:

It is good move by EU but VAT still does apply. Meaning if I wanted to get one of those sweet Korean monitors UHD 40" for $600 then I would still have to pay 20% tax which would make it $720.

Duties were never such a big deal the main problem is VAT. But oh well. Can't complain much there, it is better than nothing.

duties come before VAT

 

if that TV had 50% import taxes, before shipping and handling costs. you can assume it will drop in price by 20-30% before VAT is applied.

[Bouzoo]

9 hours ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

At first this seems like a god-send for the people of the EU, but I've heard from a lot of people that (for example) buying a 1080 from American and having it shipped over, even with the import fees and all that is still cheaper than buying it locally, so what they really need to fix is the local prices, since this development is just going to make more people import their stuff.

It's not only the 1080. My gf had iPad Air 2 bought in US by a friend, even with taxes (he was not so clever to take it out of the box), it was cheaper by $150 than here. And many more things. Friend bought a 4790K at Microcenter for $179 a year ago, even with taxes that would be much less than $431, which is the price of it atm here. I could go on for months. I mean my PC (in my profile) was $1050 year and half ago. Imagine what I could get in the US. That's case only. 

Either way, if we can get a tax removed that's great, everything helps. 

[WereCat]

6 minutes ago, Prysin said:

duties come before VAT

 

if that TV had 50% import taxes, before shipping and handling costs. you can assume it will drop in price by 20-30% before VAT is applied.

Hmmm. I will have to look better into this then.

[ShoshinUK]

10 minutes ago, Prysin said:

until you decide to exit the EU and then get slammed with 100% import and export taxes until your gov manages to cut out a deal with other countries. Deals that can take YEARS of beurocrachy to get done.

LOL fair point!

[Prysin]

1 hour ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

At first this seems like a god-send for the people of the EU, but I've heard from a lot of people that (for example) buying a 1080 from American and having it shipped over, even with the import fees and all that is still cheaper than buying it locally, so what they really need to fix is the local prices, since this development is just going to make more people import their stuff.

that is because there is a chain of "expenses"

 

Product cost + global shipping cost + import taxes + shipping taxes locally + retailer margins = retail price + VAT

[suicidalfranco]

i was blue when my noctua linustech fans arrived from ncix and had to pay an extra 30€ cause duties, hopefully this mean it won't ever be an issue again

[ChrEW]

Weird, it's been 0 % on PC Hardware here for several years at least, even though Denmark is part of the EU. I guess the individual countries had the ability to choose what should be taxed and what shouldn't. You still have to pay VAT though.

[Thiback]

WOW.

Usually, in my country (France), when a new component comes out, they apply the MSRP to the local sale of the product by keeping the number or going higher, and changing the currency to Euro. For example : a i5-4690k was $242 at launch, which should have translated into 176 euros, but the retail price in France was still 242 euros at release. Which infuriated me since at that time, the exchange rates were $1 = €0.73 (or €1= $1.35). I guess they were applying that tax you are talking about back then. 

With the removal of this tax, we SHOULD get prices reductions. Or I am getting these news totally wrong ?

[Celmor]

 

3 hours ago, WereCat said:

 

3 hours ago, Prysin said:

duties come before VAT

 

if that TV had 50% import taxes, before shipping and handling costs. you can assume it will drop in price by 20-30% before VAT is applied.

Hmmm. I will have to look better into this then.

 

19 minutes ago, Thiback said:

With the removal of this tax, we SHOULD get prices reductions. Or I am getting these news totally wrong ?

Depending on how high VAT and import duties are in your countries and if resellers actually pass the reduction in their costs down you may see none to only a little of a reducation of store prices for now, as stated in the news the import duties don't get eleminated for all electronic products immidiately, within 3 years the economic in your country can change to your benefit or the opposite.

I would see the elimination of the import duties for of an effect in the future economy as a direct flat discount you could see on your bills.

From the little research I've fone on import duties for my country (Germany) for private individuals the duties are 15-17% and for companies about 10% but latter varies a lot depending on the product. As already states here, the duties get determined before VAT get's applied (you see costums only directly charge both duties and VAT only if you personally import something otherwise the companies has to detemine the VAT and pay it when they get the product in the store). Rought calculation for this situation would be

[ ( product value  + shipping costs ) * customs duty(1.10) ] * VAT (1.19)

if I understood it correctly...

 

Source

http://www.zoll.de/EN/Private-individuals/Postal_consignments_internet_order/Shipments-to-Germany/Duties-and-taxes/Assessment-of-taxes-and-duties/assessment-of-taxes-and-duties_node.html;jsessionid=FFF3D47EA211B030B11B6A9CA61391C9.live0512

http://www.zoll.de/EN/Businesses/Movement-of-goods/Import/Duties-and-taxes/Normal-customs-clearance/Rate-of-duty/rate-of-duty_node.html;jsessionid=557320B5875AFDC15C1B13408B381CC6.live0501

[Doobeedoo]

Import tax and such really suck so much! Something that comes from US to EU is priced 20-50% more which is insane. 

[WelshDdraig]

8 hours ago, SuperShires said:

Something will come along that will screw us over lol

I hope what I say won't happen, but I honestly could imagine this happening,

Import Duties go down -> VAT goes up

UK Government loves to screw us over. 

[Belgarathian]

6 hours ago, Bouzoo said:

It's not only the 1080. My gf had iPad Air 2 bought in US by a friend, even with taxes (he was not so clever to take it out of the box), it was cheaper by $150 here. And many more things. Friend bought a 4790K at Microcenter for $179 a year ago, even with taxes that would be much less than $431, which is the price of it atm here. I could go on for months. I mean my PC (in my profile) was $1050 year and half ago. Imagine what I could get in the US.

Either way, if we can get a tax removed that's great, everything helps. 

You should try NZ... Not just electronics, pretty much everything.

 

1080 FE - $1499 NZD

 

I probably spent damn near $7,000 on my computer and peripherals. X34 monitor, $2000 NZD - 900D case $599. I could go on. Exchange rate at the moment is $1.57=1USD, but not long ago it was $1.1

[Paragon_X]

This is great news, because the excise duty is the first thing added when the item arrives in the country, that means that there will  be a price drop of 10-18% to the starting price before VAT and other fees are applied to it.