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This page contains:
- Tax intro
- Notes for international buyers
- Additional notes for residents of the E.U .or
Canada
- Why we don't collect at time of purchase
- Tax rant
- Solutions to your tax quagmire
Tax intro
If your government levies a sales tax for the
product you are purchasing, it is up to you to calculate and submit that
tax. If you are a resident of Kansas, we collect the state tax at time
of purchase (if you are a FL resident, we also
collect sales tax).
Whether we collect the tax at time of purchase or
you pay it at time of delivery, the tax is the same. Please note that no
merchant "pays" the sales tax, excise tax, tariff, or other tax for you.
Your taxes come out of your pocket, one way or another.
Simple tax fact: Taxes = spending. The more
citizens demand government services, the higher their tax burden will
be. Money does not grow on trees, and ultimately must come from the
citizens to fund whatever the government is spending it on. If
you don't like paying so much tax, demand spending cuts.
Notes for international buyers (applies also to
residents of E.U. or Canada)
- Though all USA products have taxes embedded
in the purchase price and there are World Trade Organization
agreements against your being double-taxed, your government may
subject you to additional taxation in an effort to deny you access
to USA goods. This is called "protectionism" and it's the means by
which companies that can't or won't respond to the needs of their
customers misuse the government to protect said company from
competition--at your expense.
- We don't vote your politicians in, so we can't control
this kind of anti-citizen activity.
- You will need to determine how much that
extra tax would be, and whether you can afford it.
Additional notes for residents of E.U .countries
and Canada:
- If you order from the USA, you will likely pay VAT
and/or
other taxes at the point of delivery--in addition to the
embedded tax present in all USA products. This is not a shipping
charge, though the carrier is typically the one forced to collect
this.
- UK citizens can determine their VAT burden here:
www.hmrc.gov.uk.
- We have looked into providing VAT
calculations at purchase time, but doing so is not within our means. Plus,
every country
charges a different VAT and few countries apply VAT consistently.
- You buy with
the understanding you will pay the VAT other charges at the time of
delivery.
- If
refusal to pay the VAT results in a return of the package, you are
still responsible for any shipping charges incurred. We will not pay
the manufacturer's restocking fees for you, nor will we pay the
round trip credit card fees. So, you can plan on your refund to be
about 12% less than the product price. Even at this, we still lose
money (and time) on the return.
Why we don't collect at time of purchase
- Though we use a popular shopping cart system,
the software for this process is not available. We have no way to make sense of the myriad tax laws so that we can collect the tax
money from you at purchase time and then send checks to the various
countries where our customers live.
- We do
not have the resources to deal with all the Byzantine rules
and various flavors of bureaucratic insanity. As it is, the export documents required
for shipping run a minimum of 12 pages and sometimes shoot past the 40 page
mark. Another few dead trees worth
of paper to properly file the taxes in 41 foreign languages and over
950 jurisdictions is just
not reasonable.
Tax Rant
- We are not citizens of your country. We do not have a
voice in your tax laws, nor do we benefit from any government programs
funded by that minimal portion of your tax proceeds that don't simply go to waste.
- Taxes
remove capital from the economy and cause job losses. Some of this is
necessary for funding the government. Yes, quite a bit of that
funding is
just pi-- away. But this doesn't justify cheating on taxes. It does justify
cleaning up your government.
- Taxes are, essentially,
a wage cut. If you do not like having your wages cut, then lobby to change the law. Say no to excessive taxes
by saying no to government services. You can vote with your feet by
relocating to a country that doesn't have such high taxes (that
would exclude the USA, as we have the highest taxes of all
industrialized nations, and yes, expatriation by the tax-weary is a
major problem).
- If you're fine with paying excessive taxes and import
duties, no problem. We just don't want you to blame us if you get stuck
with a tax upon delivery. We don't make your tax laws. We do offer low
prices and exceptional service, but neither of those extends to the
tax arena.
- If we could remove your
tax burden, we would. But we can't even get reasonable taxation
enacted in our own country.
- Most people have no idea just how much they
actually pay in taxes. In the USA, the tax burden is about 85% of
income for the average citizen. Most of this tax burden is in the
form of hidden taxes. If our legislators believed these taxes were
justifiable, they wouldn't hide them now, would they?
- People in the USA rail against the income
tax, but the tax itself is actually a small part of their total tax
burden. Taxes in the USA are not mainly for the purpose of
government revenue. They are for the purposes of social control and
providing jobs to a growing cadre of bureaucrats.
In the USA, eliminating the federal income tax and the unsupervised,
corrupt agency that administers it would actually cause federal tax
receipts to rise dramatically.
- The two largest hidden taxes in the USA (and
in most other countries) are inflation (govt issues more money to
pay its bills) and borrowing (govt borrows, causing cost of capital
to rise and be felt in every consumer purchase).
Solutions to your tax quagmire
- Vote against any legislator who approves of a
spending measure for any reason. Spending drives taxes up, even if
no additional taxes are legislated.
- Demand the elimination of specific programs,
agencies, and bureaus in your government. Probably, 9 out of 10 of
them serve no purpose.
- Join a citizen advocacy group that legally
lobbies for property rights, stewardship, and responsible
government (in the USA, such concepts are still "on the drawing
board.").
- Note: these solutions are not working in the
USA, but maybe they will work in your country. Give it a shot!
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