Prototype The world most flexible SFF case? LOUQE Ghost S1
- Thread starter PaChalski
- Start date
"All Ghosts will be offered with a black grill in the foreseeable future as standard."
I'm sure this has been discussed somewhere already. VAT charged in an EU country is not charged on goods exported outside the EU - definitely. I used to be in specialist retail and we did this all the time.
IIRC there was talk of the VAT being credited against shipping cost, but that may be from another product....
Anyway, bottom line; NO VAT chargeable on outside EU sales.
IIRC there was talk of the VAT being credited against shipping cost, but that may be from another product....
Anyway, bottom line; NO VAT chargeable on outside EU sales.
Thanks for the reply. In my current case, the Hybrid is tolerable as I cannot hear the pump with the side panel on.
But I am worried that with the side panels on the louqe, the pump noise will be audible, especially with 2x AIO's.
Hybrid cooler pumps are clearly audible through the side panels of a soubd dampened, non-windowed Define S Nano
Yikes. I was considering that case as a temporary hold over until the louqe releases..
It's European law on crowdfunding - VAT needs to be paid by Louqe when the cash raised becomes available. It does not matter who bought the item.
In a second step, it should be possible to have the item de-taxed at the customs when it is sent. That, however, would be up to Louqe to do.
In a second step, it should be possible to have the item de-taxed at the customs when it is sent. That, however, would be up to Louqe to do.
Team Louqe - this VAT 'confusion' and on-going discussion is unfortunately detracting from your fabulous product and possibly impacting on your Kickstarter campaign - it would be "time well spent" to get a definitive statement (pdf sheet) as to how VAT is applied or not… briefly describe various scenarios e.g. EU citizen, US citizen and other key markets and what potentially a customer may have to do to reclaim VAT or if Team Louqe are able to exempt their purchase of VAT at time of purchase etc. I appreciate it is a PITA - but rate it fairly high priority. Nobody likes to pay tax
- but they really hate finding out that they could have avoided paying tax if they had correct information to act on… at the moment there is no clear statement.@PaChalski It would be great if you could update the website with all the documents you have posted here (such as the cooler comparisons).
Fair enough - just a suggestion
I don't want feature creep to get in the way of production, so you don't have to go out of your way for something so simple. I could just drill / tape on my own feet so it's all good. Thanks for hearing it out though.
I would expect additional SKUs to cost more, regardless of whether it is cheaper to make (because they would have to make two grills then)
Team Louqe - this VAT 'confusion' and on-going discussion is unfortunately detracting from your fabulous product and possibly impacting on your Kickstarter campaign - it would be "time well spent" to get a definitive statement (pdf sheet) as to how VAT is applied or not… briefly describe various scenarios e.g. EU citizen, US citizen and other key markets and what potentially a customer may have to do to reclaim VAT or if Team Louqe are able to exempt their purchase of VAT at time of purchase etc. I appreciate it is a PITA - but rate it fairly high priority. Nobody likes to pay tax
What @Wiwh404 states is correct
We have added this to the FAQs in the campaign. Let me know if there is more we can do, see below:
Copy paste from campaign FAQ:
Q
I don't live in Sweden, not even on the same continent, why am I charged with VAT?
A
You are only charged VAT for the reward, not the shipping if you live outside EU (already discounted for).
Many EU member states (Sweden being one of them) have chosen to follow EU’s VAT Committees guidelines for liability to VAT of crowdfunding activities, which state that VAT is due on reward-based crowdfunding projects. So, it is not a case of you payinging VAT on the product, but it is us as a company that is forced to pay VAT on revenue the campaign generates.
To explain further, you are not technically buying a product but funding a company that is doing something you would like to see come to materialization. LOUQE is being taxed for the revenue generated by the campaign.
We are eternally grateful for all the support we have received, and hope that despite this added tax weight we will be able to do this together!
Read more about it here:
https://www.vatlive.com/vat-news/eu-confirms-vat-on-crowdfunding/
Last updated: Thu, December 14 2017 5:45 PM CET
Exactly this, having more SKUs and lower volumes of each drive cost.
Good point. Sounds logical and valid.
See what happens when the bureaucrats get involved....ruin a good thing. As you say etal, join in on crowd funding to help ensure a good thing comes to market and get penalized for doing that. Just wait and buy it from a web shop and get it 25% less !! Yikes!
I do see the difficult position Louqe are in - but lets be real here - WE are providing the capital for Louqe to make a profit - never forget that. So how is Louqe going to deal with this? Just let us pay 25% more then we need too...so they can have free funding to bring a product to market?
The way VAT works is they (Louqe) claim back the VAT they pay over on thier inputs (ie, for the materials,machining, packaging, promotion etc) to sell the product - so they will be claiming back a significant amount of that VAT that we pay over to them upfront.
Is it the case (excuse the pun) that the profit portion of the Ghost S1 to Louqe is calculated (maybe even relies on?) including getting this 25% VAT upfront from us so that they can then claim back a significant amount of the VAT they collect from us? Louqe will claim back the VAT paid by them on the cost to actually make the product thus making it cheaper for Louqe overall to make this Ghost in the end once all the accounting and paper work to the tax man is done.
This means the overall out of pocket expense to Loque to make the Ghost is lower to Louqe once they get the VAT they pay over on inputs, back. (ie, the VAT they pay on inputs to make and market the Ghost claimed back against the VAT paid over by their customers on sales of the Ghost). This makes it cheaper for Louqe to produce the Ghost in the end because they can claim back almost 25% of what Louqe paid out to make the product in the first place ..ie, the VAT on the inputs of making and marketing the Ghost. Is this passed onto us? Or is the cost of the Ghost so high that without us paying an extra 25% upfront that the Ghost could never be produced otherwise? If so, its a hellishly expensive case.
Hmmmm...nice case, but this whole crowd funding thing is turning into a rort. Still, good business if you can find it - let your customers fund you up front interest free. Then charge 25% VAT, which they can claim back a pretty big part of. Hmmm.......
So you ask, why the bitching over 25% VAT?
Why? this is why........It makes it Sooooooooo expensive to get this case in my country. Lets do the math.....
say $260.00 inc VAT upfront. (193.00 GBP inc tophat ..so 193.00GBP x 1.35 exchange rate to USD = $260.00 USD)
+ shipping and freight of , say $100 (good luck to those of you who live in the western world where shipping is cheap!)
(My cost to import here is about $13 - 15.00 USD per Kg. That Kg is either actual weight or volumetric weight. Whichever is the greater. Volumetric weight for air frieght is L cm x W cm x D cm / 5000 = volumetric weight.
So please Loque ...make your packing box as small as possible!!! Oh SNAP.... it might get damaged if not very well packed! Yikes. Looks like the outer box may well be quite a bit bigger then the actual case then.....
So rounded up price is now $360.00 CIF price. $260 cost price + freight of $100.00 = $360.00 (CIF = cost including freight for duty purposes) plus I am sure the freight will be more then this, but lets use this rate for the example.
So now we add 25% import duty to the CIF price. $360 * 25% = $90.00. So total is now 360 + 90.00 = $450.00
So now, here in this country, they add 15% AIT on the CIF price + duty rate applied sub total (AIT = Advanced Income Tax)
so now $450 *15% = $67.50 So total is now 450.00+ 67.50 = $517.50
So now we add 16% VAT on the sub total (360 CIF + 25% import duty + 15% AIT of that running total so far)
So now we have $360 +25% duty = $450.00 * 15% AIT = $67.50 ...so add all that up to get = $517.50 and now x 16% of all that for VAT purposes = $82.80 VAT
Grand Total amount of the bill to me to have the Ghost in my house locally is $600.30 USD. ($260 + $100 + $90 +$67.50 +$82.80 = $600.30)
Oh hang on.... I forgot the cost of the freight forwarder who does the clearance and the customs doc's. Thats another $120.00.
Oh hang on....I forgot the ASYCUDA fee..... (customs computer system used across this continent I am on). That another $50ish .
Damm this Ghost is getting expensive.
So if they can reduce the selling price to me online by 25% the multiplier effect is reduced dramatically. Maybe I should just mount my mini ITX board in an old shoe box ;-)
Really, I need a clear concise statement on the VAT angle from Loque. If I pay the 25% Swedish VAT upfront does this get refunded to me on exit of the Ghost (and if so are they any fees to me to get my VAT refund ? - those who have ever tried to claim back VAT on exit know there is always a fee for this)...or is the VAT fee offset by way of this amount coming off the freight ? Or is it just a dammed expensive (but nice) case?
A statement beyond the VAT FAQ - do we get this VAT back on export or not? Simple question that I have not seen answered clearly.
Edit: from the FAQ:
"We are eternally grateful for all the support we have received, and hope that despite this added tax weight we will be able to do this together!"
That sounds like the VAT is an unrecoverable part of helping to fund a company to build something we want.
Its a far out system huh......so we are helping to fund a company to get started and we get to pay a tax on that. A tax we cant in anyway recover or claim against our taxes.
Sorry but I am just plain tired of taxes.
Last edited:
yeah that’s a great bit of info. got someone to back the base pledge because of this clarification post
To be more positive from the EU side, I'm personally ok with VAT cos its the same 25% in my country as well and I can understand how this works for overseas lets say abroad customers. But lets look at this from another angle. On Kickstarter there is an statement if you pledge for case right now that we are getting it below retail price before other guys waiting in line in stores (webshop). For me right now that is 189 euros VAT plus 20 euros shipping. Now going from that if I choose not to pledge now and buy the case later over webshop for retail price as Louqe stated, does it mean its gonna cost like 250 euros plus shipping?
I know it sucks guys but if you want the case now just pledge for it or go with lowest pledge option now or get it later over webshop for "true" retail price, whatever that might be. @PaChalski please clarify on this once more, it can help your outside EU customers.
Long story short, if you want the case so bad, just do it!
I know it sucks guys but if you want the case now just pledge for it or go with lowest pledge option now or get it later over webshop for "true" retail price, whatever that might be. @PaChalski please clarify on this once more, it can help your outside EU customers.
Long story short, if you want the case so bad, just do it!
