The Brits have a problem. The French too, and the Germans and Italians and … all of them there. Europeans are poised to pay more for their digital cameras if the European Commission pushes through with its plan to reclassify digicams with video functions in the same class as camcorders.
If the EC decides that way, it will slap customs duties of 4.9% and 12.5% on digital cameras which have an auxiliary function for the recording of short video sequences.
The Photo Imaging Council is vigorously opposing the additional taxes as they will make digital cameras more expensive. It said no digital cameras are manufactured inside the European Union so consumers in Europe will have to pay much more for digital cameras in the future. (What? Rollei and Braun are just re-branding cameras from Asia?)
The PIC noted that all ITA signatory countries and all WTO regions continue to recognize digital cameras as information technology (IT) products, thus respecting their exemption from import duties decided in the first WTO Ministerial Declaration of Singapore, 1996.
[Via PhotographyBLOG.com]