Vat refund on purchase online

Daily Life, Swiss News and General Topics
21
It would certainly be possible. Nothing easier than that and the German tax man is not involved. It is just another form of dynamic pricing. If you sell a good outside of the EU no VAT has to levied.

Let us say we a have a good with a consumer of € 200 when delivered to Germany. If a product is export out of the EU no VAT has to be charged and thus the net price, assuming 19% VAT, should be €168.07.

However the store is free to set a different price. Anytime. For example if the good is sold to a buyer residing outside the EU. In that case a net price of €200 or a net price of € 185.70 could be set. The latter coincidently is €200 including 7.7% Swiss VAT.

22
not to start a new thread, I will place my question here.

Recently I wanted to buy some goods (cotton canvas cloth) from a German on-line shop, they do offer sending their ware to Switzerland. At the check-out I recognized that they didn't deduct the VAT from the final sum. I asked them and got this answer:

"Wenn Sie die Ust. ID eingeben erhalten Sie die Bestellung ohne Mwst. Falls Sie privat keine Ust. ID haben können Sie die abgestempelte Rechnung an uns zurücksenden, dann erstatten wir die Mwst."

so:

"..you can return the stamped invoice to us, we will refund the VAT"

This is somehow strange to me. Till now when importing through a courier I only got a collective bill to pay the Swiss VAT and no documentation. Or at least I do not remember ever getting a stamped invoice. Does anyone have experience or knowledge if this is legit?

23
It *can* be done like that but if they're sending outside of EU they shouldn't have charged VAT in the first place.

24
They obviously don't know how to do it and their system is not set up to do it the "easy" way for your as a customer. Depending on the amount, can press to do an order outside of online and pay via bank transfer or you may need to let it go if shop is unable to do this.

25

There is no obligation for the store to deduct VAT at source

26
Not to deduct but not to charge in the first place.

27

No obligation

28
C'mon. There was no discussion about obligations to deduct VAT or to sell to Switzerland.

Anyway, thanks Landers and Kri. I don't intend to proceed with it, except if someone would confirm through experience that it works without additional costs. In past I did some imports with non-proportional administrative costs. Normally one can find a shop with a clear buying process.