Hello guys, i got a question for all of you.
Im interested in how does the mail delivery work in the US, as in, what kind of taxes do you pay, are there any extra taxes if the package is, for example from EU, what exactly does "free shipping mean" (its free to get it to the US but not to u'r home, or free all the way to the house) etc.
Just trying to see how screwed up my country is compared to a (no offence) semi-normal country.
Thanks in advance.
If a website says 'free shipping' that is almost always within it's home country.
This site may help you:
http://www.dutycalculator.com/
yeah, more or less..
thanks
VAT is similar to Sales Tax @Chronos, something many states do have.
Also VAT in Europe is payed in the country where the company is based. For instance, if Steam was based in low tax Luxembourg then their customers would pay lower VAT because of that (may change soon).
If you buy something from say a German online retailer you would pay German VAT.
Also, if a retailer in say Germany says 'free shipping' that means free shipping within Germany in most cases. You won't get it "all the way to your door" in a foreign country for free unless specified.
Sounded to me like he asking if free shipping applied to imports, is all.
He clearly said:
So he's asking about importing from the EU, and judging by my link about import duty it answered the question well enough.
Weather I reside in the country he lives in or not does not impede my ability to answer his question.
If you order something from the EU and eBay says it's free than it will be free, eBay has a great 'global shipping' programme nowadays. However Amazon for instance will say 'Free shipping within Germany' which of course wouldn’t apply to you or @aspectral
He's asking about importing from the EU Chronos.
A place you don't live in.
Chronos, "please do not argue with a European about European shopping and delivery policies." :)
I'm not saying you can't provide valuable information, you can. Don't put other people down for providing infomation because they aren't American though, this just ridiculous.
I pointed out you'd still pay the VAT. It's included in the price. So yes, you have paid tax on that purchase, not American tax but tax all the same.
I also stated that sales tax is not in all states. When it says "free shipping" it does mean to your door, if you reside in that country, as I clearly stated. I merely pointed out that if your in say America importing from say Germany than that 'free shipping' may not apply to you so it's worth checking. It doesn't always say 'within' which can be confusing when ordering from other countries. Amazon do it well, the smaller retailers may not.
I don't see where I was wrong, I saw myself adding to your comment. You went straight for saying I was not in the US thus implying that I couldn't provide valuable information, which I did since my link answered his question.
If the website says it at checkout then yes, it will be free. However on the product pages this may not be the case.
The link I sent OP would calculate the import duty from any country to the United States and say weather there was any or not. If he was only asking about import duty than why did you respond after the question was answered?
How am I misinformed? What have I said that's wrong in this thread? Please, dig it up.
Well that wasn't so difficult. Have a good day buddy.
@Chronos, @Kai that cleared a lot of stuff up, thanks dudes. Turns out my country is screwed up beyond redemption >.> oh well...
Thanks again for clarifying this for me :) .
If it says its free shipping, it's free shipping with no other hidden fees from what I have seen. If it's not free, it is usually a standard fee that is based on weight and size but does not seem to change based on the country the package it is shipped from. If you are shipping a package it can be costly. You will pay to ship based on size and weight. You will also pay based on distance. Across the US from coast to coast can be double or triple than that of shipping from the state next to yours. If you ship to other countries such as Canada (as I have done), you pay exporting fee's which get extremely pricey. I only made this mistake once. Somthing that cost me around 20 dollars to ship in the US cost me 50 dollars to ship to Canada even though it was a shorter distance. Chicago Illinois to the southern tip of Ontario Canada. You than add on your standard state sales taxes on goods which is applied to the shipping cost. Something like 8% of the price of the good. So a 20 dollar shipping cost would work out to be 21.50. These sales taxes are also sometimes applied online, but generally get missed due to the tax changing from state to state or even county to county. The IRS wants you to report this tax to them every year, but most people don't give a hoot.
~ US citizen
Yes and no!
In EU you do pay Vat/taxes/whatever to the country where the company you buy from are based (or if based in several country whatever local website you where on).
But IF the company does sell for a higher amount then 100.000-150.000 euros (don´t remember exactly but it is around that amount) to a specific country then the company have to start collecting whatever vat/tax that country have instead of the vat/tax in the country they are in.
It is the company that is responsible for that and if they miss that they get too pay and also could get charged the customer have nothing to worry about.
Many company's does therefore charge tax/vat to the country your buying from even before that set amount is reached only because they have too pay fines and so on IF they miss it when it happens.
For example uk have 12%vat sweden have 25%vat (for most some product have 12%) if you as a swede buy from Amazon.co.uk amazon does collect the 25%vat.
Amazon does not have a .se store and the .co.uk site does more often ship to sweden then .com does but it cost more (even before vat/taxes) which suck.
One of the other important factors with shipping in the USA is that the dimensions of the products make a significant impact on the price of shipping. Although in the UK we do have different rates for different sizes many (if not all) US postal services use dimensional weight. It's also worth noting that different carriers use slightly different methods for calculating the dimensional weight (you can look this up quite easily). You don't have to work that out yourself though - just enter the dimensions of the package(s) on the respective website and the carrier will work all of that out.
The aspect of free shipping is dependant on the retailer, really. Most of the time the method being used will be a ground or economy service. The vast majority of the time, shipping from US48 to Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico exclude free shipping (or the requirement for free shipping is much higher). This can be likened to shipping to the Highlands and Islands in the UK.
Items over a certain size (or just length) or weight will ship via freight. I'll assume that you're not ordering something like a fridge-freezer.
Taxes... yeah, I'll leave that to someone from the country.
If you're shipping from the US to somewhere in Europe one of the best websites is Amazon because they include a deposit for the import duties in the shipping costs. Once delivered they will refund you if the deposit exceeded the total shipping rate paid.
Another handy service is HopShopGo, which redirects mail sent within the US to other places in the world. Where possible they will also re-package the box to decrease the dimensions (thus lowering the cost). They're handy when there's a US-exclusive item that you want to purchase, though they generally won't beat shipping prices; it's good when you can ship via free shipping to them then they'll redirect to you. They will, however, bill you for the shipping, taxes and/or import duties after you receive them.
doesn't mean we're not supposed to.
Not all states charge sales tax for online purchases. And some only charge if the product comes from the same state.
And some States have no sales tax at all. Sales tax is a revenue stream for states. Income tax is the federal revenue stream.