Keysight Scope Giveaway

[SimonWasAnEngineer]

Germany strikes again.
I was contacted by a winner of the weekly 4000X scope in Germany and it's going to cost 30% in taxes (on the retail price of this, that's HUGE) for him to collect it.
He can't even donate it to the local Hackerspace 

If I understood Daniel correctly they will ship the prize form al local office. If that is true there will be no import taxes.
And as long as it is a random draw (e.g. lottery) you don´t have to pay income tax.
In case of the 6000-series scope its different. When you have to "do something" for a prize (e.g. win a quiz or game of poker) it is taken as income and you have to pay the tax.

I´m no lawyer but that´s my understanding of our law.

[kaz911]

In the UK sweepstake lottery winnings are mostly tax free. In Denmark I think there is a 15% tax but not certain as it has been 10+ years since I kept up to date there.

[kaz911]

Good news, I just got word from my CPA tax professional (wife in this case) that my losses from last year are enough to offset winning the $70k 6000 X-Series without having to pay a dime. That would take some of the sting from the R&D I spent the last couple of years.

And remember - if you put it in as an asset - you can do an annual write off as well - so you will "recoup" your losses again over a few years. I don't know how that works with winnings but if they want you to pay tax on the Win - they will have to accept write-off on the equipment value as well. But get your wife to double check (Well my wife is a CPA & CTA - but not on my smallish level *G*)

[hayatepilot]

When you enter, there's a field to choose your prefered distributor.
I assume that every official distributor can deliver your price. It's like Keysight buys the scope for you.
You just have to choose a local distributor and there will be no taxes. 

Greetings

[Taucher]

I'm curious on how many entries did enter the contest yet - can you guys provide some info on that?

Also some feedback to the webform:
I first didn't see the message showing on top when entering again too fast:
- it was outside the visible area on my screen while submitting the form (yeah, modern screen form-factors)
- it quickly went away on it's own (just leave it there?)
Suggestion: let the error-message tell in how many hours or at what time (and timezone) the next entry will be allowed

[Keysight DanielBogdanoff]

If I understood Daniel correctly they will ship the prize form al local office. If that is true there will be no import taxes.
And as long as it is a random draw (e.g. lottery) you don´t have to pay income tax.
In case of the 6000-series scope its different. When you have to "do something" for a prize (e.g. win a quiz or game of poker) it is taken as income and you have to pay the tax.

I´m no lawyer but that´s my understanding of our law.

Hi folks,

Our legal team has looked pretty exhaustively into doing whatever we can to make sure we're both compliant AND helpful.  Every country has very different laws regarding skill based vs luck based contests and how they are initiated, managed, fulfilled, and taxed.  If you win, the scope may or may not come from a distributor; it really depends on the country/region.

We're working on some options on the back-end to try to make winner's taxes more manageable. If you win, we'll talk more about it!

Obligatory link to the daily winner playlist: http://bit.ly/Scope_winners

[rx8pilot]

Hi folks,

Our legal team has looked pretty exhaustively into doing whatever we can to make sure we're both compliant AND helpful.  Every country has very different laws regarding skill based vs luck based contests and how they are initiated, managed, fulfilled, and taxed.  If you win, the scope may or may not come from a distributor; it really depends on the country/region.

We're working on some options on the back-end to try to make winner's taxes more manageable. If you win, we'll talk more about it!

Obligatory link to the daily winner playlist: http://bit.ly/Scope_winners

That is rather impressive that Keysight is allocating legal resources to study the contest with the goal of finding the best path for the winners.

[broz]

Hi folks,

Our legal team has looked pretty exhaustively into doing whatever we can to make sure we're both compliant AND helpful.  Every country has very different laws regarding skill based vs luck based contests and how they are initiated, managed, fulfilled, and taxed.  If you win, the scope may or may not come from a distributor; it really depends on the country/region.

We're working on some options on the back-end to try to make winner's taxes more manageable. If you win, we'll talk more about it!

Obligatory link to the daily winner playlist: http://bit.ly/Scope_winners

That is rather impressive that Keysight is allocating legal resources to study the contest with the goal of finding the best path for the winners.

Agreed, I'm also thoroughly impressed that Keysight (and Daniel for that matter) have been so transparent/helpful, while also engaging us here on the EEVblog forum 

[ataradov]

That is rather impressive that Keysight is allocating legal resources to study the contest with the goal of finding the best path for the winners.

They kind of have to. Otherwise the thing turns into thousands of disappointed people because they lost, and 35 of disappointed people because they won

[Towger]

Legal and tax advice don't mix.  I have both seen and experienced this my self.  Even though it goes against my tight arse nature, there comes a time when spending money on a proper tax consultant with local knowledge more than pays off.

[kaz911]

Legal and tax advice don't mix.

Tell that to my wife who has a law degree and is a CTA & CPA *G*

[rx8pilot]

Wow, 2 years of personal R&D is a big gamble, good luck. Anything people on here would be interested in?

Yep, but believe it or not - this is my third time taking a gamble like this. Electronics is my third major career endeavor. My final chapter will be combining all of the skills and experiences - but I am still on the learning curve with EE.

The 2 years had to cover my own personal learning curve getting back into EE. I went half-way through an EE program ending in 1993, now I had to intensely self-educate to get anything done. It also had to cover mechanical, electronic, and software design of a product family with a long marketable life span. Since I could not afford a team - I simply had to suck it up and do the whole thing from concept to design to engineering to CNC machining to designing the manufacturing process, marketing, etc. All day, every day. No breaks. Lots of coffee and cheap food. My entire bench is made from eBay test gear that is 10-15 years old. It's a very cobbled system overall, but I have the ability to go from soup to nuts very fast. I resurrected a pick and place machine, a laser engraver, power supplies, designed and manufactured countless tools and fixtures.

The end result is a family of brute strength power management products aimed at camera systems used motion picture and television production. I should send one of the first ones in for a tear down. The biggest drawback of a 1-man-band is that I get no critical feedback from anyone. My previous companies had employees that would point out my design weak spots early in the process. Now, I tend to find the problems late in the game. A tear-down by another engineer would be eye opening - good or bad.

I want to win the 6000 x series pretty bad. A scope like that will allow me to skip a couple of painful years and make some use of the hard work I have put in so far.

[PeterEE]

Keysight just sent me an email offering to let me choose a lower priced scope from the 3000T series.

Anything from this series:

http://www.keysight.com/en/pcx-x205216/infiniivision-3000t-x-series-oscilloscopes?nid=-32541.0&cc=US&lc=eng

Which makes sense since they are trying to promote their new touch series.

Now I just have to figure out which one I can afford to pay taxes on...

Thanks Keysight!  I'm glad they were willing to work with us.

[rx8pilot]

Fantastic! I wish I was making the same decisions as you.

[Towger]

Legal and tax advice don't mix.

Tell that to my wife who has a law degree and is a CTA & CPA *G*

I have already told that myself to one of the top legal companies, a few years ago, but that's another rant.
 
Only last week I saw another example, where our landlord's solicitor thought that paying rent quarterly March, June, Sept, Dec at the end of each month and changing to paying Jan, April, July, Oct at the start of each month, meant that a quarters rent was missing.  It came with a snotty letter full of legalese and printout of a spreadsheet detailing 6 years of rent payments. 4 years ago when the change happened their were 3 payments in the year. But basic maths is obviously not their strong point.  I spotted the sequence changing in seconds and the landlord (an elderly farmer) could not under stand the problem, because he would notice himself if €6+k did not arrive in his account...

[RobertoLG]

Keysight just sent me an email offering to let me choose a lower priced scope from the 3000T series.

Anything from this series:

http://www.keysight.com/en/pcx-x205216/infiniivision-3000t-x-series-oscilloscopes?nid=-32541.0&cc=US&lc=eng

Which makes sense since they are trying to promote their new touch series.

Now I just have to figure out which one I can afford to pay taxes on...

Thanks Keysight!  I'm glad they were willing to work with us.

hey that's nice   good "choosing"

[PeterEE]

Any thoughts on MSO vs. DSO?  I do tend to work with Arduino and similar stuff.

[rx8pilot]

The MSO will be helpful dealing with all the logic - i2c, SPI, UART, etc.

[shplatt]

Welp... didn't think this would be my "first post", but I got selected yesterday.  Much like Peter, I've been a little torn on what to do.  First, I had to convince myself this was all legit... especially since the email they sent asked for a completed W-9!  That, and that tiny, little part about paying taxes on a $16k scope...  So, I've been reading through this thread today to get some more insight and lo and behold, Peter offers up a little nugget about picking a cheaper scope.  Dang, this might just be doable.  Don't have much need for 1Ghz, but 200 or 350 MHz might be easier to swallow - not to mention higher SAF.

Just wondering... Dave had alluded to all the software options being enabled.  Is this true?  If so, does this get added to the value?

Jared

[rx8pilot]

It depends on whether or not it is documented, but I suspect that Keysight has all that buttoned up and the associated value will be on the paperwork and you will pay the tax on the MSRP of the option.

Curious if they could just issue a key without the paperwork since it does not effect inventory. That would take the value down quite a bit and lower the tax liability.

[rch]

When you enter, there's a field to choose your prefered distributor.
I assume that every official distributor can deliver your price. It's like Keysight buys the scope for you.
You just have to choose a local distributor and there will be no taxes. 

I would like to think you are right, but unfortunately I suspect not.  When an EU distributor stocks or imports to order a Keysight scope I strongly suspect the distributor pays the VAT and import duty on the scope at wholesale value. Which is some significant percentage under list price.  When he sells it he either recoups the import duty from the buyer or absorbs it from his considerable profit.  Whatever price he agrees with the customer, he then *adds the VAT* on that price.   He accounts to the VAT administrators for the VAT he has paid and the VAT he has received and the result is that he neither gains nor loses on VAT.

If it is a gift from Keysight to a customer he probably has to pay the VAT and duty on the full list price, as he is not buying it himself so wholesale price does not come into it - has no meaning in the context.  Equally he can still only reclaim the VAT from the customer.

So, unless Keysight actually import the scope to the EU themselves, to a local office,  and then hand it over to the prize winner or the dealer, one might have to pay the VAT and duty.  If Keysight are not used to importing scopes themselves it seems unlikely they will have any system to do it.

I await clarification from an EU winner!

[shplatt]

Peter, it's only a $1500 difference.  Assuming the extra taxes are on the order of $375, it might be worth it.  That said, I'd probably hunt for some videos showing the LA in action to see if it meets your needs.

Thanks, BTW, for posting about the offer to pick a cheaper scope...  I'm considering doing the same.

[rx8pilot]

Just so it's out there.... I will pay the tax on your 4000x and relieve the burden after you send to me 

[hendorog]

Just a thought regarding the sales tax component of the prize which was mentioned earlier.

In NZ you could register yourself for our GST, pay the tax, and then claim that tax back later.
Perhaps this is also possible in other countries?

[Keysight DanielBogdanoff]

PSA:

If you've won, congrats!  Please respond to our e-mails  ; talking to us won't force you to be stuck with taxes, etc. If you've won and are concerned about it, talk to us. Thanks and good luck!