E bay VAT rules

[Colin_McLeod]

I got the following message from e bay. It makes no mention of the private seller, offloading surplus items or even  a small business not registered for VAT.

 

Add VAT to listings before 1 Jan. when eBay starts collecting VAT on UK imports

Hello colin_mcleod,

From 1 January 2021, eBay will be legally required to begin collecting and remitting VAT for UK imports. From that date, eBay will have to charge buyers the applicable VAT amount directly and remit this sum to the relevant authorities.

Irish sellers trading with UK buyers and listing on the UK or any EU site will need to provide both gross prices as well as the applicable VAT rate used to calculate the gross price on all listings. If sellers do not specify gross prices and VAT rates, eBay will have to assume that the price provided is the net price, and will add VAT on top of the price displayed to buyers.

We strongly urge sellers listing on eBay.co.uk or other European eBay sites to specify the applicable VAT rates on existing listings as soon as possible. All new listings should include a VAT rate. You will find the field for the VAT rate beside the price when you create or edit listings.

What you need to know:

- From 1 January 2021, eBay will start to collect and remit VAT for UK imports on all consignments with a value of up to £135. There will no longer be a VAT exemption for small consignments up to £15.
- In cases where the seller is a non-UK business and the goods are already in the UK, eBay will collect and remit VAT for goods sold to consumers within the UK, regardless of their value.
- Sellers should begin listing the applicable VAT rates on all their existing and new listings as soon as possible.
- From 1 March 2021, eBay will make it mandatory to add the VAT rate on all UK and EU sites when listing items.


Thank you for selling on eBay,
Your eBay Team

eBay Document ID: 93395795007

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[YesTor]

33 minutes ago, Colin_McLeod said:

- From 1 March 2021, eBay will make it mandatory to add the VAT rate on all UK and EU sites when listing items.

 

Hmmm, interesting.  It's only a guess, as the statement above seems slightly ambiguous, but my way of reading this is that the seller will need to specify the VAT rate when creating a listing?  Presumably at that point the seller will be able to specify whether their business is VAT registered or not, and if so what the appropriate level of VAT actually is?   If the business is non-VAT registered then there won't be any VAT to collect.  I'd imagine that eBay will need the VAT number for each business as well - I've no idea if that's something requested by eBay anyway when registering as a business seller?  It may well not be the case currently as I seem to recall seeing dotted around eBay that it is, "every business's responsibility to take care of their own tax affairs"...   I guess all that is about to change as we exit the EU...

 

Best

Al

Edited November 18, 2020 by YesTor

[Jonboy]

The key to this is changed to uk law that obligate marketplace sites to ensure VAT is collected. If you don’t provide details of a VAT registration the market place have to assume this process on your behalf.

 

As the seller you will get a 3d/qr barcode at some point in the sales process to display on the parcel for it to whizz through customs as pre-declared. 
 

(I suspect this will tighten the screws on non-PayPal payments in the case of eBay).

 

as an aside if you don’t like the current post office interrogation about contents when posting parcels you ain’t seen nothing yet...