Other than transport and VAT are there any other costs e.g. duties I need to be aware of for the materials? Google didn’t reveal anything, but I may have needed terms other than Marmor, Naturstein and Zoll.
I’m considering putting marble flooring down in my new apartment. Some of the prices I’ve seen in Switzerland are eye watering compared to the kind of price I’ve been told it is available for in Italy.
You loose on import tax and save on VAR return.
Expect to pay ca. +7 to 9% over the Italian price.
Italian companies that have experience with Swiss customers already have "Swiss" price - with delivery, customs procedures and VAT/tax gain/loss counted in.
Unfortunately, the stone that they deliver, may quite differ in quality (color, cut) from the one you picked on site.
Thanks. The supplier is the wife of a colleague, so I don’t expect any quality or pricing issues
You need to ask the supplier if they'll sort out the VAT paperwork for you. Normally it works like this:
1. You buy the marble, pay in Euros like any Italian but be sure get a form for the customs to reclaim the 22% Italian VAT
2. At the border you visit the Italian guards first, they'll scan your VAT document and stamp it.
3. Visit the Swiss border agents with your receipt of purchase. They'll want you to pay VAT and if liable you pay import duty but I don't there's any tariff on marble from the EU*. So you pay the 7.7%.
4. When you're home you scan/email the export documents and send them to the supplier. Days/weeks later they'll refund the VAT.
4. Keep the paperwork for five years
When I've done it it's been painless to the point of satisfyingly easy because you can get a bigger choice abroad and big savings too
* You can look up import duties, be sure to get the right category http://xtares.admin.ch/tares?l=en