On Thu, 16 Mar 2000, Marcus Frey wrote:

> David Brownlee wrote:
> 
> > Does it make more sense to ship them across to europe in one
> > batch, then onto each country, or just ship them to
> > each 'group'?
> 
> The overall cost for shipping the batch to europe and then distributing them
> would be higher than shipping to each country and distribute only within
> this country, I think.

As a Briton here in the US I am keenly aware of duty issues. You may like
to ship to each individual. The usual scheme used for imports to the UK
is
that you pay VAT on the CIF (Consignement, Insurance, Freight) charges
when all added up. It can really suck sometimes. The are two ways to get
around this.

1) If you have lived out of the country for a year and have owned the
goods for 6 months then they become personal pesessions. No good in this
case.

2) Come in under the gift limits - I think currently at 75 GBP.

It's a bit of a problem and I imagine that the rest of Europe is the same.

The light at the end of the tunnel is that if you can get the machines
into Europe somehow without this messing around then distribution within
can be on a "personal use import" basis. (The same basis that had myself
and a bunch of friends driving from the south of England to France every
year and coming back with a truck full of wine/beer etc.)

Hope this helps. I am by no means an expert but have fallen foul of it a
couple of times.

Alex.