Customs from the US for a gift?

Eoinmc97

Hey everyone,
Seeing as Revenue.ie is god awful at actually giving you details about Custom and Import Duties, I come to you omniscient group to ask a puzzling question.

My uncle lives in the USA, and he wants to send his old GTX 780Ti over to me (who will pass it on to my younger brother for his birthday). He doesn't have the receipt, but he wants to send the original box over.
So, do we pay import duties on this? Should we wrap it in gift wrapping and put "Gift" on the Import slip and N/A on the value? Or is this a bad idea?

jonerkinsella

You will be fine if it is a used item marked as a gift. I have had new items shipped from the USA by friends. I just got them to open the boxes and packing to Make them look used without custom charges .

You may get some smart ass customs guy asking you to prove it ,but all it will take is a bit longer before you get it.

K.O.Kiki

Don't mark value as n/a - if it gets lost it's worth nothing!

ED E

jonerkinsella wrote: »

You will be fine if it is a used item marked as a gift. I have had new items shipped from the USA by friends. I just got them to open the boxes and packing to Make them look used without custom charges .

You may get some smart ass customs guy asking you to prove it ,but all it will take is a bit longer before you get it.

The gift limit is €22. They could legitimately assess it at as well above that and charge VAT+Duty on the fair market value.

I cannot advise tax evasion here but if you were to label it as from yourself to yourself then it could be seen as a transfer of personal items.

dxhound2005

Eoinmc97 wrote: »

Hey everyone,
Seeing as Revenue.ie is god awful at actually giving you details about Custom and Import Duties, I come to you omniscient group to ask a puzzling question.

My uncle lives in the USA, and he wants to send his old GTX 780Ti over to me (who will pass it on to my younger brother for his birthday). He doesn't have the receipt, but he wants to send the original box over.
So, do we pay import duties on this? Should we wrap it in gift wrapping and put "Gift" on the Import slip and N/A on the value? Or is this a bad idea?

Revenue have information.

http://www.revenue.ie/en/customs/leaflets/pn1179.html

Also have a look at this forum.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=583

Eoinmc97

Thanks guys for the help.
By the sounds of things, it looks like it would be charged. How much however, is not listed on Revenue.ie, as they have no metric for used GPUs. I highly doubt they would value a 780Ti under €45 (or know what it is other than a PC component) so it could literally end up being guestimated and charged that way.

ED_E, when you say "from yourself to yourself", would they not...I dunno, realise I don't live in the USA?
Jonerkinsella, did they charge you at all? This is literally a 780Ti, in a Gigabyte box, and foam, which is pretty similar to what you are saying.

jonerkinsella

Eoinmc97 wrote: »

Thanks guys for the help.
By the sounds of things, it looks like it would be charged. How much however, is not listed on Revenue.ie, as they have no metric for used GPUs. I highly doubt they would value a 780Ti under €45 (or know what it is other than a PC component) so it could literally end up being guestimated and charged that way.

ED_E, when you say "from yourself to yourself", would they not...I dunno, realise I don't live in the USA?
Jonerkinsella, did they charge you at all? This is literally a 780Ti, in a Gigabyte box, and foam, which is pretty similar to what you are saying.

No charges by customs.

I had a motherboard with a watercooling kit shipped . I had a rad shipped . I had ram , cpu and other bits shipped in the past without problems as gifts.

I actually got a 15" telescope mirror with a focuser worth over $1000 shipped as a gift without problems in the past.

I had other items shipped ,new with prices and they have mostly been stopped.

Calibos

Also, get your 'Uncle' to ship it over via the USPS as opposed to a courier company. The courier companies interface with themselves over here and have their own customs processing and even charge a fee for doing you the 'service' of customs processing your package for you. Thus 100% of packages sent by them are customs processed. However the United States Postal Service (USPS) interface with An Post over here and goes through the Customs processing centre in Port Laoise which doesn't have the capacity to check every single package. Like Joner Kinsella above I got lots of Astronomy related equipment from the States about 5 years ago totalling thousands of euros and got it all shipped by the various vendors via USPS. IIRC 2 or 3 packages out of about 8 were customs processed and the rest went through without incurring any customs and Vat. Even better, the 3 packages that I did have to pay customs and Vat on were small and comparatively low value compared to the rest.

farna_boy

Just had a look there because I thought there was a minimum limit under which there would be no charges.

Reading this link, it seems that goods with an intrinsic value under €150 may be imported from outside the EU without payment of customs. However, if it costs more than €22 you should pay VAT.

Not sure if that is of any use here but it might be worth noting.

ED E

farna_boy wrote: »

Just had a look there because I thought there was a minimum limit under which there would be no charges.

Reading this link, it seems that goods with an intrinsic value under €150 may be imported from outside the EU without payment of customs. However, if it costs more than €22 you should pay VAT.

Not sure if that is of any use here but it might be worth noting.

Thats duty and excise which is a tiny portion of the cost of the VAT when it comes to electronics.

dxhound2005

I don't think anyone could accuse the Revenue of not publishing enough information. The salient point is that where customs duty applies it is at the rate of 2.5%, unless a different rate is specified on this list. Computers and computer components are not listed separately, so the graphics card of that value would be 2.5%. This is not just for Ireland, but all EU countries. Ad valorem means According to Value.

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32015R1754&qid=1449055100318&from=EN

D. Standard rate of duty
1. Customs duty shall be charged at the flat rate of 2,5 % ad valorem on goods:
— contained in consignments sent by one private individual to another, or
— contained in travellers' personal luggage,
provided that such importations are not of a commercial nature.

This flat-rate 2,5 % customs duty shall apply, provided that the intrinsic value of the goods subject to import duty does
not exceed € 700 per consignment or per traveller.

The important thing to remember for postal/courier items is that the Customs Value is the declared value of item (Revenue can challenge this and request evidence of value), plus the postage/freight charges plus any insurance fees paid by the sender. This is what the 2.5% is charged on. After that VAT is applied at 23% on that full total including the 2.5%. Then An Post or other carrier charges a processing fee for collecting the charges.

Eoinmc97

Found this worth mentioning:
https://www.meijburg.com/news/ita-eu-import-duties-on-a-wide-range-of-electronic-products-eliminated-as-of-july-1-2016

I guess you could argue GPUs are MCOs, with little opposition outside engineers. This is handy to save €10....now we just gotta lower that VAT on goods not produced in the EU XD

Eoinmc97

dxhound2005 wrote: »

I don't think anyone could accuse the Revenue of not publishing enough information. The salient point is that where customs duty applies it is at the rate of 2.5%, unless a different rate is specified on this list. Computers and computer components are not listed separately, so the graphics card of that value would be 2.5%. This is not just for Ireland, but all EU countries. Ad valorem means According to Value.

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32015R1754&qid=1449055100318&from=EN

D. Standard rate of duty
1. Customs duty shall be charged at the flat rate of 2,5 % ad valorem on goods:
— contained in consignments sent by one private individual to another, or
— contained in travellers' personal luggage,
provided that such importations are not of a commercial nature.

This flat-rate 2,5 % customs duty shall apply, provided that the intrinsic value of the goods subject to import duty does
not exceed € 700 per consignment or per traveller.

The important thing to remember for postal/courier items is that the Customs Value is the declared value of item (Revenue can challenge this and request evidence of value), plus the postage/freight charges plus any insurance fees paid by the sender. This is what the 2.5% is charged on. After that VAT is applied at 23% on that full total including the 2.5%. Then An Post or other carrier charges a processing fee for collecting the charges.

So, how would you value the gift, being over 3 years old, no warranty and EOL? This is where the Revenue should supply some guidelines, as obviously the current value is less than the purchase price, yet the Revenue seems to do business on the loose term "value".
Would you say I'd get away with it being €70 or around that?