Import tax does not apply.aic18 wrote:And just to be sure, if I buy something online from Europe, there will be no customs tax AND no VAT tax?
The VAT is always charged... but when buying from another EU country which is part of the EU Customs Union and VAT area, the VAT is already part of the listed price. Hence, what you pay to the merchant will be the final price. (It is the EU law — you are not legally allowed to advertise tax-free prices to private customers. The VAT is always included in the listed price. This also goes for ordinary brick-and-mortar retail; supermarkets and the like: the price on the price tag is the price you pay at the checkout: the prices listed to consumers are VAT-inclusive.)
Merchants who do a lot of business to other EU countries — worth over a certain annual threshold in euros — are required to charge their customers the VAT rate of the EU country they’re selling to, though. For example, Amazon.de will charge the Finnish VAT rate from their Finnish customers at their checkout, even though elsewhere in their service they may list the prices (primarily to their German customers) using the German VAT, which can make the prices appear cheaper.
Hence, when hunting for bargains, you may sometimes get a better deal by buying from a smaller merchant which does not ordinarily do that much business to Finland, and is therefore allowed to charge you their local (e.g. German) VAT, instead of the (generally higher) Finnish VAT.
Even if you were to order something from outside the EU, purchases below €20.83 (including shipping) are generally exempt from the VAT as they do not collect the VAT if its calculated amount remains below €5. (And they’re exempt from the import tax as well, as import tax will only apply when the value of the shipment exceeds €150.) This makes it possible to buy the cheaper trinkets and tech gadgets tax-free from the Chinese sellers on eBay, or from sites like DX.com, as their shipping is usually “free” and they will happily ship individual items in separate envelopes.
