Keysight Scopmonth, Taxes when winning. Marketing-Bullshit?

[Pinkus]

Hello,

is someone interested in the MSO4104A, for  xx%?

I'm happy to trade my  "win" for a Rigol MSO4024 for Free. I prefer a free scope, I Do not want to spend  money and the Rigol got 30  times the memory.

Sebastian

I would trade my Agilent MSOX3024 with all options (all official) with LAN/VGA card. This is a much better solution than the Rigol (which I had before). If you are interested, drop me a PM. I am in Germany.

[Fred27]

I'm really hoping rx8pilot wins the next one, instead of yet another whiner who shouldn't have entered in the first place.

It sounds like Keysight are doing what they can, but it may not be under their control. Some countries may tax you on the fair market value of what comes into the country regardless of what you paid or didn't. Even Dave's dumpster find might incur taxes for the recipient.

I can only imagine that after all the moaning winners, Keysight is going to be reluctant to be as generous in the future.

[Wuerstchenhund]

US income tax is 30%, not sure if as a german I have to pay because its shipped from Malaysia.

Only US citizens and legal US residents pay US taxes. So unless you hold an American passport or live over there then US taxes don't matter.

BTW: income tax is, as the name implies, paid on income.

Winning a scope is not income.

German VAT is 19%.

Costums is another unknown.

It could exceed  50% tax! So Keysights Scopemonth may ruin my life.

No, it won't   For a scope the worst case is you pay VAT on the declared value (which is not the retail price!) and that's it. There's no import duty on these scopes, and it's not an income by any legal definition.

[bktemp]

German VAT is 19%.

Costums is another unknown.

It could exceed  50% tax! So Keysights Scopemonth may ruin my life.

No, it won't   For a scope the worst case is you pay VAT on the declared value (which is not the retail price!) and that's it. There's no import duty on these scopes, and it's not an income by any legal definition.

You don't know German customs. If they don't believe the declared value, they look it up and take the true value instead of the declared one. So it is a gamble how much it will cost to get this scope if it is not shipped from inside the EU.

[Howardlong]

I can only imagine that after all the moaning winners, Keysight is going to be reluctant to be as generous in the future.

Exactly.

[Howardlong]

German VAT is 19%.

Costums is another unknown.

It could exceed  50% tax! So Keysights Scopemonth may ruin my life.

No, it won't   For a scope the worst case is you pay VAT on the declared value (which is not the retail price!) and that's it. There's no import duty on these scopes, and it's not an income by any legal definition.

You don't know German customs. If they don't believe the declared value, they look it up and take the true value instead of the declared one. So it is a gamble how much it will cost to get this scope if it is not shipped from inside the EU.

As I stated before, if it is shipped DDP from Malaysia as my last scope was from Keysight, the taxes are paid directly by the sender, and the recipient has no further taxes to pay to a third party.

If they do ship your prize DDP, I would suggest it would be highly unlikely that Keysight would even think about invoicing you for any tax they paid on your behalf for a competition prize.

[tszaboo]

I'm really hoping rx8pilot wins the next one, instead of yet another whiner who shouldn't have entered in the first place.

It sounds like Keysight are doing what they can, but it may not be under their control. Some countries may tax you on the fair market value of what comes into the country regardless of what you paid or didn't. Even Dave's dumpster find might incur taxes for the recipient.

I can only imagine that after all the moaning winners, Keysight is going to be reluctant to be as generous in the future.

Camon, dont be hard on the guy. Probably if he would have won a 3000 series, he would gladly pay that few hundred EUR tax, but he got an over expensive product. Especially that most of that cost is the software upgrade. I mean, they could just send him probably a MSOX4024A (no I did not look up if the ardware is the same) and email a bunch of unlock codes, and save him thousands. Instead, they decided to screw him with legal.

Congratulations. I hope your situation on the scope will be sorted out.

[TheSteve]

I'm really hoping rx8pilot wins the next one, instead of yet another whiner who shouldn't have entered in the first place.

It sounds like Keysight are doing what they can, but it may not be under their control. Some countries may tax you on the fair market value of what comes into the country regardless of what you paid or didn't. Even Dave's dumpster find might incur taxes for the recipient.

I can only imagine that after all the moaning winners, Keysight is going to be reluctant to be as generous in the future.

Camon, dont be hard on the guy. Probably if he would have won a 3000 series, he would gladly pay that few hundred EUR tax, but he got an over expensive product. Especially that most of that cost is the software upgrade. I mean, they could just send him probably a MSOX4024A (no I did not look up if the ardware is the same) and email a bunch of unlock codes, and save him thousands. Instead, they decided to screw him with legal.

Congratulations. I hope your situation on the scope will be sorted out.

They have offered winners the option of a cheaper model to save on taxes.

[Howardlong]

they decided to screw him

OK, in what way exactly is Keysight "screwing" the winner of a $20k+ prize?

If the winner is so disappointed with his exceptionally good fortune is to simply reject the prize and let it go back to the pot for others who will be appreciative of such a windfall.

Or send it to me, I'll pay any taxes, and I'll gift him my 1 month old MSOX3054A intra-EU (ie, no taxes) in return.

[marber]

they decided to screw him

OK, in what way exactly is Keysight "screwing" the winner of a $20k+ prize?

If the winner is so disappointed with his exceptionally good fortune is to simply reject the prize and let it go back to the pot for others who will be appreciative of such a windfall.

Or send it to me, I'll pay any taxes, and I'll gift him my 1 month old MSOX3054A intra-EU (ie, no taxes) in return.

Exactly, there's probably a whole queue of people ready to happily take that problem off the OP's shoulders.

Honestly, if I were Keysight and I'd read these very ungrateful and even insulting posts on a public forum, I'd probably simply retract the draw and offer it to someone else who is actually happy with it the next day. Yes, it's a marketing stunt, but a very reasonable and generous one which can only benefit the winner, and in no way forces anyone to do anything they don't want or didn't know upfront. Or ruin their life.

There are of course reasons why a company may be able to offer a large prize pool with minimized legal risks but isn't willing to also bear the imposed taxes involved. Doing that would certainly diminish the size of the prize pool - keep in mind that e.g. the actual costs to Keysight to donate these scopes is significantly less than their MSRP. In certain other circumstances they may be willing to take the full cost including taxes when there's a substantial value to them, e.g. a video blogger with many viewers of the right audience that can have a large positive effect on sales. Clearly, any random (potentially ungrateful) prize winner out there may not have that same effect, or even take it in the opposite direction.

[Ivan7enych]

Hm, for example if I live in california, just to pay taxes (30% or more? ) for some intermediate model, for example MSOX3032T (350MHz, 2+16chanels), I'll pay 8000$*30% = 2400$ at least.

And finally after many troubles I will get full analog of my Rigol MSO2072 (unlocked to 300MHz and taken for 1200$). Yeah, Keysight is a brand, touchscreen is nice, there must be more software features...

[Wuerstchenhund]

You don't know German customs.

As a German who spent most of his life in Germany and who had to deal with a lot of import/export issues during his career I do know the often pretty nasty behavior of German customs.

If they don't believe the declared value, they look it up and take the true value instead of the declared one. So it is a gamble how much it will cost to get this scope if it is not shipped from inside the EU.

Yes, but that's how pretty much all customs departments operate, Germany, UK, US, you name it. And they'll do that mostly for vastly under-declared stuff, i.e. a lot of the crap that comes from China which is marked as "gift" or "$3 value" while its well over $100. They're unlikely to question the declared value of a piece of test equipment sent by the manufacturer.

Also, if that happens you can object to their assessment if you believe it is wrong, and if they're unwilling to accept it then go to court.

[Wuerstchenhund]

Hm, for example if I live in california, just to pay taxes (30% or more? ) for some intermediate model, for example MSOX3032T (350MHz, 2+16chanels), I'll pay 8000$*30% = 2400$ at least.

You don't pay 30% on a scope that's imported from outside the US. You pay some import duty (how much depends on the country of origin, but it's nowhere near 30%) plus if you live in CA you'll have to pay state tax.

I really wish people would stop panicking over baseless assumptions and just get clued up on what tax & duty on an imported scope really are. (i.e. either read the regulations or ask customs)

[nctnico]

Hm, for example if I live in california, just to pay taxes (30% or more? ) for some intermediate model, for example MSOX3032T (350MHz, 2+16chanels), I'll pay 8000$*30% = 2400$ at least.

You don't pay 30% on a scope that's imported from outside the US. You pay some import duty (how much depends on the country of origin, but it's nowhere near 30%) plus if you live in CA you'll have to pay state tax.

I really wish people would stop panicking over baseless assumptions and just get clued up on what tax & duty on an imported scope really are. (i.e. either read the regulations or ask customs)

It is not that simple. Actually there can be up to four kind of taxes at play here depending on local laws:
- Import duties
- VAT
- Income taxes
- Gambling taxes

Import duties and VAT can be handled by Keysight if they deliver the price through a local dealer or a dealer which is in the same VAT area (like the EU). But then there are still income and/or gambling taxes.

[macboy]

My understanding is this is a US lottery. They even wont ship it until you pay 30% Tax to the IRS. Your local import fee and local tax is on top of that, and perhaps your local tax wont apply if your country is with a free trade agreement with the US. I'd very much like to see a post from a winner who actually received the prize to tell us how much he ended up paying.

Not exactly. A couple years ago I won an item through another Agilent contest. Similar to this one, that contest was open to Canada, USA, and many other countries. I did not pay anything to the US government or even to Canada. Agilent named itself the importer and they paid the import taxes! (HST in Ontario, Canada).

To the OP: I would be al too happy to have the "burden" of paying only 19 cents on the dollar for a top-notch piece of gear. Once it is yours, you can do anything you want, including selling it. However, I read that a stipulation of accepting the prize is giving a written quote about how you use the gear, for Keysight to use in marketing. Certainly you could make something up... or write about how easy it is to use right out of the box, then put it right back in the box and sell it on.

[mos6502]

I'm really hoping rx8pilot wins the next one, instead of yet another whiner who shouldn't have entered in the first place.

It sounds like Keysight are doing what they can, but it may not be under their control. Some countries may tax you on the fair market value of what comes into the country regardless of what you paid or didn't. Even Dave's dumpster find might incur taxes for the recipient.

I can only imagine that after all the moaning winners, Keysight is going to be reluctant to be as generous in the future.

Haha, yeah, that poor international corporation, I bet its feelings are hurt now!

Do you really think Keysight is giving away these scopes because they're feeling generous? They do it because it's free advertisement. If nothing else, it generates hits on their YouTube videos (which are ads, plain and simple). Otherwise they would have to purchase ads on YouTube, which everyone filters out or skips anyway. Try to get someone to watch a 5 minute ad. To reach this many people from their target audience, they would otherwise have to spend millions of $$$ in ads.

Now BTT, there's a lot of misinformation in this thread. I live in Germany and buy stuff from all over the world. Here's the deal: if you receive ANYTHING from outside the EU, you have to pay 19% import tax. This is the same 19% VAT that you'd pay in a store. The reason for this is that otherwise everyone would just buy stuff from foreign countries and circumvent the VAT.

There's also customs, but there are hardly tariffs on anything anymore. At least for electronics, there's no customs to be paid.

Essentially, anything that's bigger than a padded envelope will be held by customs. You have to prove to them how much the goods are worth, by providing a PayPal or credit card statement. If you can't prove the value, the customs officer will determine it himself, usually to your disadvantage. It also doesn't matter if it's a gift or free or whatever. You receive it, you pay the 19%. No way around that.

Now, the question is, why can't they send the prize from one of their distributors? I mean, they want you to BUY from the distributor. If you buy from overseas, they get pissed and deny you the warranty. If they don't want to ruin their little ad campaign, they'd be sending him the scope from a German distributor, because right now, the whole company is looking like a bunch of incompetent bureaucrats.

[tszaboo]

they decided to screw him

OK, in what way exactly is Keysight "screwing" the winner of a $20k+ prize?

If the winner is so disappointed with his exceptionally good fortune is to simply reject the prize and let it go back to the pot for others who will be appreciative of such a windfall.

Or send it to me, I'll pay any taxes, and I'll gift him my 1 month old MSOX3054A intra-EU (ie, no taxes) in return.

Keysight did not offer him a cheaper scope, someone from the forum did.
My issue is not that they are giving away scopes. My issue is that they are doing zero effort to reduce the costs involved with winning this scope.
Its like giving someone on the street money, but putting it too high (like on top of a lamp post) for him to actually reach.

[macboy]

they decided to screw him

OK, in what way exactly is Keysight "screwing" the winner of a $20k+ prize?

If the winner is so disappointed with his exceptionally good fortune is to simply reject the prize and let it go back to the pot for others who will be appreciative of such a windfall.

Or send it to me, I'll pay any taxes, and I'll gift him my 1 month old MSOX3054A intra-EU (ie, no taxes) in return.

Keysight did not offer him a cheaper scope, someone from the forum did.
My issue is not that they are giving away scopes. My issue is that they are doing zero effort to reduce the costs involved with winning this scope.
Its like giving someone on the street money, but putting it too high (like on top of a lamp post) for him to actually reach.

I doubt you will see many American winners complaining even though they will need to pay income tax on the winnings, which will likely amount to a lot more than the EU VAT.

[tszaboo]

I doubt you will see many American winners complaining even though they will need to pay income tax on the winnings, which will likely amount to a lot more than the EU VAT.

It is a life situation thing. Some people can pay x amount for something, some people cannot. I personally at this moment would not be able to pay several thousand euros for a scope, because I would need the money for something else.
BTW I hear a lot Americans complain that they have to pay half as much for fuel as we do. It is all relative.

[ProBang2]

Don´t loose your towel and: Don´t panic!

From the scopemonth thread:

Dear Mr. Bogdanoff,

I have a question. Just to make it clear.
E.g. If the winner is located in Germany:
- The scope will be shipped from your nearest sales Office?
 (in this case: Keysight Technologies Deutschland GmbH, Boeblingen)

or

- The scope will only be shipped from Keysight, Santa Rosa? 

I firmly believe that your answer is interesting for all countries with your sales offices.

It would be great to get an answer to this one, or was it already answered?

Sorry, missed this one.  In general, the scope will come from a local distributor.  There are a couple exceptions, but this is the general case.  You'll be contacted via e-mail if you are a winner. Well, you're all winners (or something), but you'll be contacted if you win a scope.

Keysight has a sales office in germany:

Keysight Technologies Deutschland GmbH
Herrenberger Str. 130
71034 Böblingen

There is no VAT if it is distributed from the german sales office.

Like this:

Not exactly. A couple years ago I won an item through another Agilent contest. Similar to this one, that contest was open to Canada, USA, and many other countries. I did not pay anything to the US government or even to Canada. Agilent named itself the importer and they paid the import taxes! (HST in Ontario, Canada).

That´s the "magic carpet" which takes scopes without VAT into Dave´s dumpster...

 

[madires]

Now, the question is, why can't they send the prize from one of their distributors? I mean, they want you to BUY from the distributor. If you buy from overseas, they get pissed and deny you the warranty. If they don't want to ruin their little ad campaign, they'd be sending him the scope from a German distributor, because right now, the whole company is looking like a bunch of incompetent bureaucrats.

I think they are trying to evade taxes also The benefit of sending the scope directly from the production will result in the real production costs used for tax purposes. They could do it also via local distributors but then the distributors would know the production costs, which are lower than what they have to pay when reselling scopes. No manufacturer want the distributors to know such sensitive details. If they would use the reseller's price to fix that it would increase taxes/duties for them too. I'd assume the real cost for the sweepstake is less then US$500000 (that number is based on the retail prices).There are also issues with VAT for a prize, i.e. if a company has to declare VAT or can reclaim VAT when giving away a prize. Managing that for several countries must be a nightmare.

[Fred27]

I can only imagine that after all the moaning winners, Keysight is going to be reluctant to be as generous in the future.

Haha, yeah, that poor international corporation, I bet its feelings are hurt now!

Nobody is suggesting that a company has hurt feelings, but whoever is on charge of this contest may decide it didn't go well and not too do another one on the future.

[SimonWasAnEngineer]

Hello,

the main reason I opened the topic was to warn others that are not aware that winning the contest could ruin their life. Keysight offers a 70,000$ Scope to win(video contest). If the one signs the paper, which I have not up to now, he or she has to pay 30-50% tax, about 20,000 maybe even 40,000$. The way Keysight handles it is, ignoring the problem, contractually making the winner responsible, and the winner has to care about the tax-laws of two or three countries. I do not think what they do is fair, even it is correct to US-law. Just think about a young student, … .

If you win the price in the county where you are located, it does not cause that much trouble and the regulations are much easier to handle. I invited Robert Lashlee (Keysight Business Development Manager at Keysight) to be my “Facebook Friend”, no response.

I think what they do, they ship it from Malaysia to Germany and do only pay the costums and taxes for the “production cost”, the Distributor will charge the VAT for the retail-price. They do not want their production cost to be public. Usually people that win a price in the US have to pay a tax (e.g. at LasVegas), there is no exception for foreigners. But let’s see what they tell me on Monday.

What is interesting, Keysight did not join this EEVBLOG-topic officially, but they run an account. Maybe it was a part of their strategy to scare away the winners by signing a contract. For Canada and South Africa they have a “mathematical skill-testing question”. I wonder if that is legal in the US. So much about ethnic discrimination at Keysight.

I posted the contract so you can have a look.

Sebastian

Daniel from Keysight is pretty active in the other Scopemonth thread and he seems to be the one who is in charge of this whole giveaway. Did you try contact him?
From what i read there they are really trying their best to help another user who won.

The contract you posted contains only things that are in the terms and conditions aswell, so you should have read them before you entered the contest.

Why should a mathematical question be an ethnic discrimination if it is required be the local government?

[StuUK]

So much about ethnic discrimination at Keysight.


Sebastian

Don't be silly, it's not discrimination its running an international competition which involves all sorts of local laws regarding competitions.... if you don't like your local rules then don't enter

[signals]

It could exceed  50% tax! So Keysights Scopemonth may ruin my life.

Sebastian

Being a little over dramatic, don't you think? It's especially insulting to come on to a forum where many of us would love to win the prize you were just awarded, just to complain about it.

So, the scope is worth approximately 20,000 USD, give or take. We'll use your number of 50% tax. So you'd pay ~10,000 in tax for the scope. Leave it in the box, put it in Buy/Sell/Wanted or on an auction site as NIB, and price it at 15,000 USD. Someone will buy it. Take the 15,000 from the sale, pay the 10,000 in tax, then use the 5,000 to buy a more affordable scope.

How does that ruin your life?