kathyrose said:I think you pay the tax in the country you buy stuff from but reclaim it while exiting at the customs or something. I've heard my parents talk about this but I don't exactly know how it works.
If you want to collect on the reclaim VAT, you must make sure that the store you are buying the goods from fills out the form for you and validates it so that when you clear customs to go back to the states it gets looked over and approved. It also helps if you or someone you know back at home in the states can read the language on the forms or else you will not exactly know where to send which copy to and all the effort will have gone to waste. Even if you do your part of sending in the correct form, you sometimes have to buy a phone card and somehow communicate with someone in the foreign store you shopped at to see when you will be getting your refund bc if they know you are American, they sometimes stiff you and won't send you the refund...
LV is cheaper in Europe bc the currency difference...the USD is usually weaker than the Euro and most definitely always weaker than the British pound...this does effect pricing bc Lv does come from France and is a French product regardless of their satellite manufacturing branches in the US & Spain...whew, hope this helps gals!