Her Majesty's Customs and Excise

[Jon898]

Daffy, you're correct.  Not only do states have different rates, but also cities and counties extort sorry, collect taxes at different rates and based on different systems.  Most states are "destination" states for "sales and use" tax purposes, meaning a supplier will charge a tax based on where the item is shipped to rather than where it is shipped from, provided they have an "establishment" in the destination state.  If they don't have an establishment in the destination, they are supposed to leave off the tax and it's the responsibility of the receiver to declare and pay the tax (usually on their annual state tax return) - which is why they've termed it a use tax.  Of course complicating this is the fact there are 12 states (AZ, CA, IL, MS, MN, NM, OH, PA, TN, TX, UT, VA) that are "origin" states and will charge tax based on where it is shipped from.  Added to that is that CA is actually "mixed" in that city, county and state taxes are origin based, but district taxes (yes, they have those too) are destination based.  There is no national/federal sales tax and some states don't have a sales and use tax at all.

My assessment would be that an exported item would not include a sales tax if it comes from a destination state, but may have it if it comes from an origin state...always assuming the vendor is set up to do it correctly, which is a pretty bold assumption (I'm currently fighting this issue as I live in a destination state in a low-tax county and most in-state suppliers want to charge me their higher county tax even if they ship the item to my home).

Of course the sales taxes here are typically less that VAT to begin with (mine is 6-3/4%), so the export savings are not as important.  In addition, prices are almost never quoted to include tax (personal pet peeve).

Frankly, it sounds like the OP was  charged twice, possibly through some fat-fingering.

Jon

[Webbo]

Good grief Jon. Your post was quite an eye opener.

Here in Australia I don't think I've ever been charged tax from a US origin. To be sure, the seller sometimes states if you are a resident of their state, then you are subject to their sales tax. If I've been taxed in an 'origin' state, I just haven't been aware of it.

We don't pay import duty or import charges provided the value of the imported tem including transport is less than $1000. It seems the government had decided that the cost of levying the duty was not worth the effort. However, a few of our big retailers want to have the duty reimposed to discourage overseas sales that don't run through them. Apparently, the government has been listening and the duty-free limit is going to be reduced considerably next July.

I buy virtually all of my railway stuff from overseas mainly because I can't get it here at any price.

Webbo

[jpendle]

Just to counter that post about taxes here in the US.

In practice the effect of sales taxes is rather small and everyone expects to see tax added to any item purchased.

For example, I just bought a fancy LED desk lamp for my new study. It was priced at $199.95, I paid $214.75. This includes city, county and state sales taxes.
If the shop had been in my county and town, then taxes would have been around half that, but unless you are buying a car no-one seems to care that much.

There is no VAT or Federal sales tax here, average taxes in a city run around 7% in the county probably around 4% (for Colorado).

So when buying from the UK there is no VAT to pay at all, and the Federal Excise duty for model trains is 0%. So I can buy an item at Hattons (let's say), and the VAT saved more than compensates for having it delivered by DHL International and getting it signed for.

The effect of living in a country which levies VAT, is that almost all items purchased, whether inside or outside of that country are liable for VAT.

I do think however that the the allowance for goods could be more generous. I was confined to my house once when we still lived in the UK. My US colleagues sent me a Gameboy to play with as I couldn't do much. When the postie delivered it he asked me for 30 quid, or he wouldn't deliver.

As I hadn't bought it and it was genuinely a gift I felt that was a little steep, but I had no choice.

For an example of taxes and duties working against us here, when we bought a new house we had to pick all the carpets, we say a very nice imported woollen Axminster at $9.99, so we said we'll have that. When we say the total price we found that carpet in the US is priced per square foot! not per square yard. So it was working out at nearly 10 times what you would pay in the UK.

We though about buying it in the UK and getting sent out to the US, but after looking at the US Customs tariffs for carpets, we found that they would want around 300% on top of the UK price!

So we bought wooden floors instead.And if you gave benn to the US and wonder why many people don't have wallpaper, it's because it is too expensive for the 'average joe'
to buy!

Regards,

John P