just a concern for any us winner. im not 100% sure about this so if im wrong great. I remember hearing something a while ago that even for competition's like these . You have to pay federal prize taxes. which is a % of the total value of the prize. so lets ay for the first place rig, id roughly value it in parts around 3000-3500 usd. 10% of that is 300 -350 + shipping. I remember for the monster modz competition for MMPCTECH the owner threw the computer on ebay because the taxes were so high it didnt feel like winning anything. Maybe if you sent this to the winner marked as a "GIFT" instead of a prize saying it is a us winner for any of them.
Nope, Just pay the courier his fee to take car of everything for you. I payed my guy under $300 and gave him my home address in California and he took care of the rest. Here is a link to the guy I used if anyone ends up needing his service, I think tom knows him as well and can vouch for him too.
http://www.ecs-iow.co.uk/welcome.htm He is still using his old truck pick and home page front page, that says Isle of Wight and Europe, but he ships international as well.
I even called the Customs in Europe, I cant remember exactly what they told me but it was basically I had no taxes to worry about on items leaving their customs, so no charges, and it is listed as gift or better yet, personal Items. They said if there were going to be any issues with charges as far as taxes it would be on our U.S. customs end, but there never was for me. It just showed up at my doorstep.
Like you I was also worried about customs, taxes, Paperwork, Not sure exactly what I had to do, etc. But I only had to get sizes and weight of boxes from Tom, tell my courier those dimensions, he told me what he could ship it for. Which turned out to be about the cheapest I could find. I sent him Payment by paypal, My addy and Toms so he knew where to pick it up, and made sure he would pick it up from Toms at a time tom would be available for the guy to come get it. But as far as Paperwork, customs and all that, don't worry about it, Just pay the courier his fee and he will get it done.