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Comment by dogma1138 | Hacker News Reader

That is if you don’t get caught at customs… you’ll have to pay at least the VAT on the value of your purchase and possible a duty as well.

So if you want to do it legally you’ll have to add 20-25% to the price which no longer makes it very appealing.

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Just take it out of the box and put it in your carryon, making it your 'work laptop' right? How would you risk being caught at customs?

How to get past customs isn’t the problem, however it’s still tax evasion.

You can also buy a house much quicker in Europe if you find a way not to pay 50% of your income in tax… oh and that Porsche now looks quite affordable too..

> however it’s still tax evasion

Not it's not. What are you even talking about? Buying goods for personal consumption/usage and bringing them into is perfectly legal..

Personal imports are also subject to paying import duty if value exceeds the allowance limits (which depend on means of travel).

Not without paying the duty and VAT above the exemption limit it doesn’t matter if the goods are for personal use or not.

> That is if you don’t get caught at customs

Do you still have to pay if the Mac is out of the box and you have used it?

When I lived in Switzerland, some clever people thought about that, as it used to have lower taxes for electronics.

It so happens that there are databases used by the customs agents that can trace back serial numbers to countries and purchase locations.

So trying to make up a story on a random control can turn out pretty bad.

Each country has a database that tracks import fee payment history by OEM serial number of laptops and other electronic devices, based on shipments to other countries?

I don't know how it actually works, rather an Interpol kind of database where products serial numbers are tracked in some way.

Being caught on lies where we actually bought our phones or cameras, while being controlled on the French/Swiss border wasn't that out of the ordinary.

Was that necessary on every border crossing, e.g. showing copies of import fee payment receipts for each device? Sounds like a lot of overhead.

A matter of luck when talking to the customs agents.

Most of the time not at all, and then you get that one that wants to show off or had a bad day.

According to the the law yes.

The probability of getting caught is low. Unless you're bringing back several boxes.

Unpack, put it in your backpack, boom it's your personal item.

Again this isn’t about the probability it’s about the legality, saying that things are cheaper when you avoid tax is like saying water is wet.

> The probability of getting caught is low

Why would it be illegal if you just bought a single laptop for personal usage?

Because you are avoiding tax, if you get caught you’ll pay the duty and a fine.

Because you need to pay VAT on imports into the country above a certain value (which is much less than the cost of a Macbook).

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