Shipments sent via national postal operators potentially result in a lack of payment of VAT and import duties to the national authorities for more than 60% of items purchased online. Our experimental study shows asignificant lack of collection of VAT and customs import duty for goods purchased online and imported into the EU via national postal services. The resulting loss of public income is estimated at up to 1.3 billion euros annually.
The study is based on a set of fully completed online purchases, leading to the actual shipment of circa 400 packages with content purchased from Canada, China, India, Japan and the US and imported into the EU.
In contrast, shipments sent via private express carriers (e.g. FedEx, UPS) resulted in lack of payment of VAT and import duties only 1-2% of the time for similar imports.
On 30 May, Dr Bruno Basalisco presents the results at the annual Ecommerce Europe conference in Barcelona.
For further information, please contact Bruno Basalisco