VAT - Advise please !!
 

I'm drowning on receipts from Portugal, Spain and now Italy.
I have no idea how to collect the VAT and how to do it.
Can anybody let me know what receipts are worth keeping and where to exchange them.
Do the receipts from every Country work for VAT anywhere or the ones from Portugal and Spain wont work as we are in Italy and next Switzerland, returning from Zurich.
I want to get rid of receipts and just keeping the ones worth keeping.

Thanks!

As far as the overwhelming majority of visitors are concerned, you may get VAT refunded from an EU country only if:

- you're a resident of a non-EU country, and
- you're taking the goods, unused, permanently out of the EU, and
- you bought the goods concerned at a shop registered under the refund scheme (most shops aren't), and
- you completed the relevant paperwork at the time of purchase.

Rules in Switzerland are slightly different, but the general principles are similar.

Except for goods you've bought that meet all four conditions above, almost certainly the VAT receipts you've collected are useless. You may as well throw them away right now.

The general rules at http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/vat/sectors/c...visitors.htm#1 apply to all the other 26 countries as well.

flanneruk's response pretty much sums it up.

You have to present the VAT paperwork at the time of purchase and have it signed and dated or "no go".

every EU exit point has a VAT offfice. the store you are purchasing from must give you the paperwork, then you fill it out, then give it to the VAT office at the exit point of the EU. if you are flying out of Zurich you can turn your EU receipts in before you enter Switzerland. Remember switzerland is not part of he EU so there will not be any VAT offices at the zurich airport for EU receipts.

****every EU exit point has a VAT office****

Not if you go overland you do not have them...I have also never seen any at sea ports. On the later I am expecting a correction!

"you bought the goods concerned at a shop registered under the refund scheme (most shops aren't), and
- you completed the relevant paperwork at the time of purchase."

Isn't there a minimum purchase price in one day in one store to qualify? Something like at least 200 euros in Galeries Lafayette on 14 July 2010? Then you take the receipts to an office in L.G. where you fill out the VAT forms and they are approved by the store.

Stores set their own minimum purchase value, it is not set in law.
Not all stores offer VAT refunds - most don't.

Thanks!
I believe the bag of receipts will go to the Recycle box.

Keep those receipts for some expensive purchases, which you may need to produce if you want to make a warranty claim - some items come with worldwide cover.

Keep them too for anything you are taking back to the US. Just in case US customs get stroppy.

"<i>I believe the bag of receipts will go to the Recycle box.</i>"

Yep- that's about it. You needed to complete forms you receive from the merchants and turn them before going home.

Also - you only get the VAT back for goods (and then only if the merchant participates and/or you spend enough money) not for hotels, restaurants, petrol, car rental, train tix, museum entry, or anything like that. You have to take the items out of the country.

Reading this maybe it is not worth trying to claim it back after all.
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntre...readID=1937011