Taxes for selling at auction

Hi all, maybe someone could help with it. I would like to send some expensive autographs to US auction from Spain. Should one pay any taxes for selling autographs being a residential of European Union? Thanks.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on August 18, 2023 at 3:54pm

Tunky,

You generally have no income tax if you're not a US resident or citizen, and sales tax, if any, is paid by the buyer. I don't know if you'd have an import/export duty.

I'd ask the auction house.

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Permalink Reply by Mikex on August 19, 2023 at 1:15am

Send it as a business transaction.

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Permalink Reply by Findbooks on August 19, 2023 at 10:40am

You should not be liable for taxation in the USA but will be liable in Spain if the amounts involved exceed the capital gains tax limits in that country.

One difficult issue to resolve, however, is how you declare the items to USA customs when shipping. Most states in the USA apply sales tax on imported goods when you - the sender - are the seller. When you send goods to an auctioneer in the USA you are not really "selling" them to the auctioneer. However, I do not understand how you would "declare" the items and their value without imposing a sales tax obligation on the recipient (i.e. the auction house in question). The contents of your package are not a "gift" or "sample" - what are they? I do not know - perhaps someone else can chip in with advice/experience in this matter. I would be glad to know myself as I have considered doing the same thing but have not been able to overcome this problem.

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Permalink Reply by Mikex on August 19, 2023 at 11:37am

I sent it as a business transaction from the UK to USA. I had no problems.

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Permalink Reply by Findbooks on August 19, 2023 at 2:10pm

I guess you selected "Other" on the CN 22/23 customs label, then, wrote "business transaction"?

It would ne helpful to know. Tbh I am surprised that it was delivered successfully on that basis so exact details would be helpful.

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Permalink Reply by Mikex on August 20, 2023 at 12:59am

I can't exactly remember. I asked the post office worker. I've never had a problem from the UK. There's no import tax on business transactions.

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Permalink Reply by Tunky on August 19, 2023 at 12:12pm

Thanks for the replies. There were no problems when I sold not very expensive autographs. I wonder how it goes with the items valued $20K+. I've contacted one known auction house- they said that generally there were no problems, unless the items are very expensive.