Question for EU fellas

[EPPHO]

What are the rules for bringing pc parts across the European Union border. Is there some kind of tax that I have to pay if I do that? Is it better to assemble the pc before crossing the border and saying them it's a used pc? My case is that i'm gonna buy parts in Germany and I have to bring them into Bosnia and Herzegowina (Bosnia isn't in the Union).

[mariushm]

Varies from country to country.

 

Usually you don't pay customs taxes for orders made online that have invoice value below some threshold, like 100-150 euro (it's 150 euro in my country, for orders from outside EU).

Customs fees are usually small, 1-6%.. most are 2-3% Some countries don't charge customs fees for some categories of products  (for example IT products in EU are supposed to be without customs fees) or they have reduced customs fees for some categories (for example books)

 

If you bring the parts in your car or in baggage in your truck over the border you may have to declare them if they're above some value.

 

You'd may also pay VAT of your country (value added tax) for products, again depends on your countries' rules. For online orders, in my country you're supposed to pay vat at the customs office for anything above around 15 euros.

 

In my country, generally customs officers don't bother doing the math and asking for money if the package is worth less than around 100 dollars, because it would slow down everything and it's not worth spending 5-10 minutes to look in their books for the code of each category of products you have in the package and calculate the percentage of each item and all that crap, only to take a couple of dollars/euro from you.

 

I don't know how it's in your country.

 

[EPPHO]

12 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Varies from country to country.

 

Usually you don't pay customs taxes for orders made online that have invoice value below some threshold, like 100-150 euro (it's 150 euro in my country, for orders from outside EU).

Customs fees are usually small, 1-6%.. most are 2-3% Some countries don't charge customs fees for some categories of products  (for example IT products in EU are supposed to be without customs fees) or they have reduced customs fees for some categories (for example books)

 

If you bring the parts in your car or in baggage in your truck over the border you may have to declare them if they're above some value.

 

You'd may also pay VAT of your country (value added tax) for products, again depends on your countries' rules. For online orders, in my country you're supposed to pay vat at the customs office for anything above around 15 euros.

 

In my country, generally customs officers don't bother doing the math and asking for money if the package is worth less than around 100 dollars, because it would slow down everything and it's not worth spending 5-10 minutes to look in their books for the code of each category of products you have in the package and calculate the percentage of each item and all that crap, only to take a couple of dollars/euro from you.

 

I don't know how it's in your country.

 

So basically best option is to build the pc before bringing it across the border and if they ask about it then i just say it's not brand new, it's used and that should make me free to go, right?

[mariushm]

You can say a friend gave you the parts as gifts when you visited him so there's no invoice or anything and they're old parts therefore not worth much. As long as they're not in shiny new boxes you should be fine.

 

A trick some people use is to take the motherboard box and flip it around so that the box is all white/gray on the outside and looks like a generic packaging box. The boxes are generally made from corrugated cardboard that is bent in some places to take the shape of the box, so you can just get the cardboard to its original flat shape and re-bend it the other way.

Or just take the components out of their boxes along with the invoices and warranty pages, mail the packaging and invoices and documentation to you (as a package or something) and then put the parts in some plain bags in a box in your trunk or back seat to make them look as used parts.

[yathis]

Those are good scams to pull. Very informative guys!

[WeeemRCB]

Technically, If you assemble the PC from components and test it before putting it in a box to ship, then it's a used item.