Hi Nevena,

I order books regularly off of amazon - generally compare the price between UK and France sites and then go with the one that is better price. As I generally get the books delivered by one or two at a time have not needed to pay import tax. However we recently purchased some inexpensive wine in France and decided to ship it home instead of stuffing it in the boot - and really regret that as our €5 Euro bottles of wine ended up costing twice that amount. But then again, I have had my mother send me $60 with of clothes from the states and had to pay CHF 20 duty - so I never really get the system.

good luck!

Make sure when you order on Amazon that you mark the option that it's a gift/present. That way i believe you avoid any import taxes. Might be a customs handling fee, but no taxes on the value of your purchase.

you can often find the same cd's and dvd's on amazon.de from germany. shipping is cheaper and if you don't have too much weight ( dvd's in a jiffy envelope for example) you may not even pay any customs duty.

I order all the time and sometimes I have to pay, sometimes not... the post office guy told me if I keep the total under 30 CHF I wont get charged, the thing is sometimes then you pay more for postage by splitting your order into multi packages so I dont bother... it is always a lot cheaper even with the tax bill added than buying in a local store ie 5 CHF for some dvds instead of 30... 

I had checked the price of some books on amazon.co.uk, amazon.fr and amazon.de and ended up buying from amazon.de(even though it was slightly more expensive) as the shipping is free, uk and france charged for delivery as international shipments, germany did not. Overall it worked out better from Germany.

Also, I did not have to pay customs duty as I guess the value might have been on the lower side, just under the treshold.

Hi, this may help : 

http://www.poste.ch/en/post-startseite/post-geschaeftskunden/post-printmedien/post-printmedien-distribution-international/post-kontakt-beratung-printmedien/post-faq-uebersicht-printmedien/post-faq-zoll-mwst-import-printmedien.htm

Thanks Vincet, this looks like the right kind of info! 

Not very encouraging, though:

"In principle, every item sent from abroad is subject to customs duties and VAT.

There is no special exemption limit like that allowed for passengers carrying goods with them, only a duty-exemption limit."

So  I guess I search for another solution :)

Also, many thanks to everyone who replied to this post! I really appreciate it that so many people took the time to read my question and to post  an answer, that was very very very kind of all of you,

bonne nuit,

Nevena 

Hello

Orders from Amazon (does not matter which) are exempt from MwSt as long as the Swiss MwSt does not excede 5 CHF , generally that means anything that is less than 70CHF will be let through with no MwSt , anything over will be charged (with Swisspost 10CHF plus 7.6% VAT).

Books are different only 2.4% Mwst.

If you understand German , here is a link from Amazon that explains everything with examples.

http://www.amazon.de/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=help_search_1-1?ie=UTF8&nodeId=1055388&qid=1285622455&sr=1-1

Mfg

Shashi

If you have a friend who lives in france get it delivered to them as you won't pay any duty on it.

I usually use Play.com as postage is free (well, included) and they always send every item individually so there's no risk of getting one big expensive package. That said, I've never had any problems with Amazon.co.uk or .de and Amazon usually works out cheaper, even if the ordering process is a much more long-winded affair.

With Amazon.fr, you can request a delivery in nearby France: use the Kiala delivery option. Thanks to this service, you can pick up your items in a shop (like a dry cleaner, a tobacco / newspapers shop, etc) that has a partnership with Kiala. It's free, no additional charge. You just need a car to go to France... (Annemasse, Ambilly, St Julien, etc, all over France actually).

I'm not sure this service is available for any kind of delivery, but it works for books and dvds.

google amazon.fr + kiala

Swiss TV just discussed this topic in their 'ABE' programme:

http://www.tsr.ch/video/emissions/abe/2555277-achats-internet-petit-paquets-grosses-factures.html#id=2555277

http://www.tsr.ch/video/emissions/abe/2555277-achats-internet-petit-paquets-grosses-factures.html#id=2555279

It seems that there is a threshold of 66.- under which there's no TVA to pay. The amount extra to pay on reception depends on the delivering company.

I had the same experience as Victoria: sometimes I was charged duties and sometimes I wasn't, on same value books. Maybe it's up to the alertness of the duty guard...