[ale] Suse Consortium Update

[Mike Murphy]

for American understanding, VAT == Sales Tax (but you probably already 
knew that). (And yes, the entire conceptual concept behind the VAT in 
most European countries is very different from the philosophy of a sales 
tax, but I press on).

I suspect that one has to pay VAT on a CD's etc. coming from SUSE 
because said CD's etc. are produced in Germany, using German labor, 
etc., and therefore subject to VAT.

However, one would think that it would behoove Novel to start pressing 
and distributing this stuff from the USA for US customers to avoid such 
interesting (read annoying) international commerce implications. The 
country of ownership usually doesn't matter to the governments of 
foreign countries.

This isn't at all unusual either. I've got lots of interesting stories, 
personally, of claiming bits of cisco gear as personal property, and 
checking it on airplanes instead of shipping it to places in south 
America to avoid the company paying both an import tax and an export tax 
on both ends of a week long trip. Different sort of taxes, same principal.

Mike

Geoffrey wrote:
> Christopher Fowler wrote:
> 
>> On Mon, 2004-05-03 at 07:11, Geoffrey wrote:
>>
>>> Greg wrote:
>>>
>>>> While we are in a holding pattern ...
>>>
>>>
>>> I'm going to call them today to find out why there's a 16% tax.  I'll 
>>> post after I've found out.
>>>
>>
>> VAT (Value Added Tax)
> 
> 
> Where's the freaking value added????
> 
> And why am I paying an European tax for a company that's owned by a US 
> company???
>