A big German test gear seller has offer to the re-shipping for me inside the EU.
They offer good internal postage rates, but there is no way to avoid the 19% German VAT, regardless of whether the meter is ultimately shipped within Germany outside of it.
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The advantage is that there should be zero customs hassles to the backer because it would be shipped internal in the EU via DHL.
I am contemplating giving people the option in the Kickstarter survey whether they want to pay the extra 19% VAT and get it quickly no hassles, or pay nothing extra up-front and "take their chances" via direct shipment into the EU. Opinions on this please...
I can only speak für germany but I think all other countries will be less complicated ;-). Sending goods from outside germany to germany you need to clearly declare what is sent. With real product and postage costs. Marking as gift will most likely lead to make the german customs define the value of a product by their suggestion what in the end most time is a very expensive deal for the recipient. E.g. the customs says ok the EEVblog 121GW is similar to a Fluke xyz, so we calculate with a product price of 500 EUR because the declaration on the parcel was not ok ;-).
Less than 26,- EUR total costs (product INCLUDING postage). No VAT no other fees to pay.
Less than 150,- EUR (232,- AUD) total costs (product INCLUDING postage), you ONLY have to pay german VAT of 19% (of the product price without postage costs) and a DHL fee.
Above 150 EUR total costs you may have to pay an extra fee but for DMMs this is 0% I think (keyword for this is Taric Code
http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/dds2/taric/measures.jsp?Lang=de&Taric=90303200&SimDate=20171207).
This is how it worked for me when I ordered the EEVblog BM235:
EEVblog BM235: 135,- AUD + 20,- AUD shipping = 155,- AUD
155,- AUD = 100,27 EUR, less than 150 EUR -> only 19% VAT, no other customs fee
135 AUD (only product) = 87,33 EUR
19% of 87,33 EUR = 16,59 EUR VAT
In total I was charged 155,- AUD (for/from Dave) + 16,59 EUR VAT + 12,50 EUR DHL fee.
The DHL fee is a fee you have to pay to DHL because they pre-pay the VAT for you. Haha. You can make a contract with DHL to allow then to directly charge the VAT from your bank account, then you won't have to pay this 12,50 EUR DHL fee. Going the way directly from Dave through the customs to us may take a week or max 2 extra weeks.
Getting the meter through a reseller in germany may make things easier and faster. But a reseller wants to get payed for his work. My experience with resellers most time is that in the end you pay more. 19% VAT and a much higher product price.
There may be another way. PostNL (netherlands) has a special service for B2C transfer to any EU country from outside the EU:
http://www.postnl.com/parcels/international-parcel-delivery/parcels-eu/You may contact postNL for exact information. As far as I understand it's not 100% ok what postNL is doing (who cares?). Because inside the EU there is no extra fee for the customer and so this could be a way to get around the VAT for all european citizens and postNL makes bulk import to the EU. But there is no exact information on their website if the recipient really does not pay VAT, you may check this with them.