oredring the Freerunner as an research item

steve steve at openmoko.com
Fri Apr 18 02:36:07 CEST 2008


Yes,

  I have received a good number of requests asking me to investigate tax
matters in various countries so I really appreciate you doing this for
Norway. In the US the status of protype products WRT to taxes varies state
to state. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Flemming Richter Mikkelsen [mailto:quatrox at gmail.com] 
Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2008 5:25 AM
To: List for Openmoko community discussion
Cc: steve
Subject: Re: oredring the Freerunner as an research item

On 4/15/08, steve <steve at openmoko.com> wrote:
>
> Just send me a personal reminder at steve at openmoko.com.
>
> And be persistent, nag me.

Today I checked with the Norwegian tax office (Skatteetaten), and they
told me that when it is for a privat hobby project, and not an
registered company (in the VAT register), we could not order the phone
as an research item.

I could check this in more detail, because the Norweigan research
center can decide that this qualifies as a research project. The rules
around this is rather complex and there is no easy answer.

So, now the situation is that the Norwegian customs say it is OK and
the Norwegian tax office (which have the authority to make exceptions
from current laws) say NO.

However, it can be tax-deductible, but that would not help for privat
persons (må overstige minimumsfradraget på 63000 NOK for at det skal
være lønnsomt).

My conclusion is that it is a lot of work, if even possible at all, to
get the devices without VAT and I think we can drop the idea of
"research items".

Now, we have also a law for prototype boards. If someone wants to
check how this really works, I would be interested in knowing the
result. But my assumption is that it will not help. There are many
laws which only apply in special cases.

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