Community update: Regarding Neo FreeRunner pre-orders

[Marc Verwerft]

Well, I live in Belgium and I can assure you that sales tax here is 21
% as opposed to Germany's 16 % ...
A lot of people are just crossing the border to Aachen/Koln to find
'cheaper' computer hardware (pc, pda, phone, digital camera's, ...)

Is there any other sales tax you are referring to then?

Regards,

Marc


On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 10:48 PM, David Pottage
<david at electric-spoon.com> wrote:
> On Monday 25 February 2008, Michael Shiloh wrote:
>  > Ivo Anjo wrote:
>  > >>  3. When the phones reach the distribution centers in Europe and USA, we
>  > >>  will open the web store and begin taking orders.
>  > >
>  > > Does this mean that it will be possible to purchase openmoko from
>  > > inside the EU, so there are no random customs taxes? That would be
>  > > great!
>  >
>  > Hi Ivo,
>  >
>  > That is certainly our intention, which is why we have been trying to set
>  > up distributors in as many places as possible.
>  >
>  > The only one I know of so far is in Germany. Since that's in the EU,
>  > that should work for you, right?
>
>  It would work, but the rate of sales tax is fairly high in Germany. Under EU
>  rules, Europeans can buy stuff from anywhere in the EU, and pay the sales tax
>  rate prevalent in the country where the shop operates instead of the rate in
>  their home country.
>
>  If FIC setup a web shop in a European country with a low sales tax rate such
>  as Belgum, Europeans buying Freerunner phones could save around 10% compared
>  with buying from a German web shop.
>
>  Having said that, it is not a huge cost, and having a web shop any where in
>  Europe is a great improvement over importing from the Far East.
>
>  --
>  David Pottage
>
>
>
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