Roadtest Thread for the R&S®︎MXO 4 Oscilloscope RoadTest

My question is about the taxes. How will they be handled?

SHISH!!! The tax collector might be listening.

I think it totally depends on the country you're in. It's always an issue with contests / roadtests, and not something the organiser has much control over.

I'm in the UK and the only time I had a problem was with a power supply from a Keysight competition. The problem was not the tax I had to pay, but the fact that someone phoned me at work weeks after it had arrived asking me for money. They didn't speak very good English and wanted me to transfer money to their bank account immediately.

I obviously told this person what I thought of their poor attempt at a scam. It was only a week after that when my boss showed me a VAT bill and asked me if I really had told the Inland Revenue to "go f**k themselves" that I realised my error.  Whilst it was a personal prize, I'd had it delivered to work for convenience and the tax bill had gone to my employer.

The team's looking into an updated answer on this one.

A consideration is to simply loan the hardware out for the RoadTest Review, and then ask for it back - though this means you won't be able to keep it, you will at least have the opportunity to use it.

Though next year the tax allowance is going up to $17k, state law depending, and that might just cover it - but I can't speak on that with any authority at present, especially as I'm based in the UK.

Nothing wrong with giving good advice to Inland Revenue

MK

I think 'permanent loan' is well understood by most tax authorities.

The issue would come if you tried to liquidise it's value.

I once did a RoadTest for a product a few years ago, I think it was around £25 ($35 at the time) in value, unfortunately it got shipped from the Newark site rather than from Farnell here in the UK. Suffice to say when it arrived at my door the delivery driver wanted around £18 ($26) in import duties and delivery fees, so from that point on I've never applied to do another RoadTest. Yes, I'd love come back as there's been quite a few products I would have enjoyed reviewing over the intervening years; this oscilloscope being the latest case in point, but if what happened to me before happened again with this item I'd hate to think what the charges would be. To take part now I'd have to have a guarantee beforehand that it would ship from Farnell.

KennyMillar said:

I think 'permanent loan' is well understood by most tax authorities.

I'm not familiar with that, still, if we went the route with delivering the item as a loan for review, we'd also arrange collection of the item via a courier.

KioseusZnook said:

uffice to say when it arrived at my door the delivery driver wanted around £18 ($26) in import duties and delivery fees

That's trash.

Did you get in touch with us to resolve this for you? I'd be very surprised if we didn't reimburse you in some way.

We definitely make sure to send out items where the delivery duty's paid for (I mark that on everything I send out). Therefore, we shouldn't see this problem again, and if we do, we'll definitely reimburse anyone experiencing it.

So funny! It is not as though the taxman hasn't been told off before. It would raise alarm bells with me if the revenue agent had difficulty speaking my language.

I coordinate a program that does income tax returns for low-income earners. I have had a few revenue agents that were hard to understand. Couple that with a client that is in their 80's, it makes for a good cartoon skit.