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Comment on RoadTest Terms & Conditions: Tax Liability

rscasny

I read some comments early this week regarding "personal" tax liability as a result of a RoadTest part they received. (As far as customs and/or duties of the shipments we send to RoadTesters, element14 should be paying those taxes. If a RoadTester is being charged for these, please notify me and I will get you a reimbursement.)

 

I think there are two things I wanted to comment on with regard to personal tax liability:

 

1. The RoadTest "Terms and Conditions" says the following:

 

Winners are responsible for all applicable taxes, duties or other charges payable in relation to any prize.

 

If you are a new RoadTester, you should read the T&Cs and get familiar with them.

 

2. In the U.S., if you receive a RoadTest product that is valued over $600, the company is required to issue you a 1099 form (Independent Contractor). This is considered personal income.

 

In hindsight, I guess I could have added a reminder to the RoadTesters who received products valued in excess of $600 as a courtesy. In the future, I will. Most of our RoadTest products are valued less than $100 so this issue doesn't come up very often. I apologize for any inconvenience this has posed.

 

Randall Scasny

RoadTest Program Manager

 

 

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  • Former Member
    Former Member

    As far as I know, in Latvia, if it is defined as prize or gift, it is not taxable income. There is another issue with EU though, if E14 ships prize from US, on import into EU, receiver of the goods is supposed to pay value added tax, unless that is paid by sender, E14 in this case. VAT rates in different EU countries are different, but generally they are 20% and up, so assuming a $1000 RoadTest item, one would have to pay $200 or more on import into EU.

     

    RR

  • in reply to Former Member

    As someone who has done some "professional" reviews, this bugs me. From time to time, people send me an email, and ask me to test something. More often than not, it comes from the US. I live in France, and I've seen some pretty heavy taxes. The problem is that people send me "sellable" objects, not samples. When I test a product, I receive it "for free", I write about it, and then, depending on the object, I send it back. When I receive an object with a piece of paper inside saying "Thanks for buying our product!", I can't go to the tax office and credibly say "I didn't buy this". One example was a RISC-V board, the original price was printed at about 50 USD, plus 20 for shipping. In an argument with UPS, I ended up paying close to 50 EUR just to actually get the board and test. The supplier was nice about it, we discussed several options, and I ended up keeping the board. The same argument is currently ongoing with another supplier, who wanted me to test a product. I didn't pay it, but now FedEx are knocking on my door asking for money, since the shipping document didn't say anything about samples. I understand the reasons; you have 50 boxes ready to go, you grab one and send it to the testers, without thinking about the contents. On the other hand, when I tested the NVIDIA Jetson TK1, they sent that out with a little gift for my time, (a GTX 970), clearly stating that the Jetson was a sample, and the GTX 970 was a gift, and that arrived the next day without any additional surprises.

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  • in reply to Former Member

    As someone who has done some "professional" reviews, this bugs me. From time to time, people send me an email, and ask me to test something. More often than not, it comes from the US. I live in France, and I've seen some pretty heavy taxes. The problem is that people send me "sellable" objects, not samples. When I test a product, I receive it "for free", I write about it, and then, depending on the object, I send it back. When I receive an object with a piece of paper inside saying "Thanks for buying our product!", I can't go to the tax office and credibly say "I didn't buy this". One example was a RISC-V board, the original price was printed at about 50 USD, plus 20 for shipping. In an argument with UPS, I ended up paying close to 50 EUR just to actually get the board and test. The supplier was nice about it, we discussed several options, and I ended up keeping the board. The same argument is currently ongoing with another supplier, who wanted me to test a product. I didn't pay it, but now FedEx are knocking on my door asking for money, since the shipping document didn't say anything about samples. I understand the reasons; you have 50 boxes ready to go, you grab one and send it to the testers, without thinking about the contents. On the other hand, when I tested the NVIDIA Jetson TK1, they sent that out with a little gift for my time, (a GTX 970), clearly stating that the Jetson was a sample, and the GTX 970 was a gift, and that arrived the next day without any additional surprises.

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