Conid "vat" Issue For Non Eu Residents Resolved !

[fountainbel]

Hi fountain pen friends !

There has been some problems with VAT which had also been charged to non EU residents.

Happy to see this issue is finally solved!

The overlapping structures the Belgian Customs and Tax departments made it very confusing.

Only after contacting both departments CONID abstained a clear view on how to proceed

Below the message Werner asked me to post on the matter.

Best regards, Francis

 

Dear CONID Customers,

We are pleased to come back to you with good news!

We have been questioned about the VAT that we have charged to all our customers, even for our Non – EU customers as we were told to do by legal authorities. This charged VAT is systematically declared at our end as such in all our files and we can ensure you of the transparency of all these transactions .

The raised concerns about CONID making profit charging our Non – EU Customers with the VAT is not justified as these were systematically declared and paid to the Belgium Taxes department.

The rightful concerns from some of our observant customers has challenged us to see what went wrong.

We now not only went for a face to face meeting with the Belgian Customs representative, but even with the Belgian Taxes department.

So finally we hope to have the full picture!

Favorable result is that the wrongly included VAT for Non EU shipments - which we already transferred to the tax office - will be refunded to our account.

We would like to emphasize that everything is done according the information given by the Belgian authorities

We are pleased to say that we will reimburse to all involved for this inappropriately charged Belgium VAT.

A personal email will be sent in order to arrange the reimbursement correctly!

We will need to revise our website as well and indicate all details of the Belgium VAT appliances and the Non EU shipping.

Thanks again for those who pointed us to the problem!

By putting this problem finally to bed, we sincerely hope our relationship for the future will be strengthened.

Kind regards,

Werner

[Edsal17]

Werner, thank you for this announcement. I am impressed with your integrity and your willingness to go the extra mile to take care of your customers. I don't think there was any animosity on what was essentially a policy mistake (tax laws are complicated), but I think you have highlighted your principles here with your actions and it is appreciated.

 

v/r

d

[Frank C]

Please let us know when your website is updated to reflect this change in policy.

[prf5]

I have been following the development of the Conid brand and the discussions on this board. I am not ready to make a purchase, but welcome the clarification of the selling price and consequent reduction for non-EU customers. I want to express my thanks to those who brought the issue to the attention of Werner and Francis.

[hanryy]

I am impressed by the amount of honesty/transparency Werner and Francis are showing. Thank you and your team for coming to a solution to the problem.

 

I do wonder what does this mean for someone like me who is currently looking to purchase a bulkfiller in the US? Should we wait until this has worked itself out?

[Frank C]

I am impressed by the amount of honesty/transparency Werner and Francis are showing. Thank you and your team for coming to a solution to the problem.

 

I do wonder what does this mean for someone like me who is currently looking to purchase a bulkfiller in the US? Should we wait until this has worked itself out?

 

I'm waiting for their website to be updated so that it deducts VAT before payment. That will help offset the 5% paypal fee.

[fountainbel]

Hi fountain pen friends,

I'm very happy to post a new message from Werner, the owner of CONID

Best regards,

Francis

 

Dear Conid customers,

A sincere " Thank You !" on the way you reacted on my earlier message concerning our resolution of the VAT issue !

Below more details on how we are going to proceed :

 

1- Prices will be corrected on our website in the coming weeks, meaning marked prices will be without VAT.

So only EU buyers will have to add the 21% VAT

 

 

2- As from today non EU residents may directly deduct the VAT from the actual mentioned prices when ordering a Bulkfiller, hence deducting 17.35% from the actual mentioned prices

( see clarification in new post below)

3- All earlier non EU customers who paid "VAT included" will be refunded for all their orders.

You will receive an E-mail in the coming weeks.

Conid will ask you to fill in a form in order to justify a refund from the Belgian VAT office, hence allowing us to recuperate the Belgian VAT we already paid.

You will need to specify your bank account or Paypal details.

4 - For all pending 2015 orders we will systematically refund per shipment.

 

5- Note it may take some time before all customers are refunded, while we sold approximately 150 Bulkfillers outside the EU in the meantime.

However be assured we we do our very best to complete the refunds as soon as possible !

 

Thanks again for your patience and friendly help in pointing us to the problem and helping us in putting this frustrating issue definitively to bed !

King regards,

Werner & Nadia

 

 

[Frank C]

Well, now I guess I have no more excuses for not ordering a Conid pen. Except, which one should I get? I like the bulk filler, I like demonstrators, I like gold nibs. . . .

[trhall]

Great information, Francis!

[fountainbel]

Hi Fountain pen friends,

It looks there is a mistake in the effective refund percentage calculation, sorry for that.

Refunding 21% off the price from non EU purchases is incorrect.
Belgian VAT rate is 21%. So if the price before VAT is 100, the total price with VAT is 121.
If someone buys that 121 item without VAT, it should cost 100.

So the discount rate is 21/121 which is about 17.35 % discount, not 21% discount.

If the discount would be 21% it would mean that the price would be 95.59 which less than the original price of 100 before VAT, and thus is more discount than just taking off the VAT.

I'll corrected this in the earlier posting.

​Sorry for the confusion we caused !

Francis

[sd10521]

Thanks for the update, and more importantly I found out my pen is on the way to me.

[Bemo]

I'd like to confirm that the issue is indeed resolved. I was issued a refund and am now looking forward to receiving my pen!

[sd10521]

Got it today!

Thanks!

It's an amazing piece of genius engineering meeting artwork. Has an amazing solid feel to it.

I just think I jumped the gun by inking it up before flushing it out first.

Can't wait for some free time to dive into this one.

I will report back soon.

[jjlax10]

Do the prices on the website reflect no VAT at the moment?

[fountainbel]

Do the prices on the website reflect no VAT at the moment?

Prices are actually still VAT included .

So one can directly deduct 17.35% of the listed prices to get the effective cost without VAT. ( or multiply the listed price with 0.8265)

Conid aims to get the site updated within 2 weeks.

Francis