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Buying and Selling models to/from Europe


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12 hours ago, maico said:

 

I've normally found it cheaper to buy from German dealers for NOS models, direct or via eBay, rather than UK ones who source from Guagemaster the UK distributor.

Some items were cheaper from the Marklin-Trix website. My last purchase last year was for a replacement Portescap Athlonix coreless motor @ 35 euros + a few bits of track with their standard 8 euros shipping rate.
That's half the price of the same motor (without flywheel) from UK factors like RS Components!

 

 

Gaugemaster seems to be the main problem when it comes to UK retailers being able to compete with the European ones. Looking at the prices on their website, they just seem to change the Euro price number into pounds, so basically a 10% plus increase straight away. 

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1 hour ago, maico said:

 

I don't understand why the publisher would get confused, there is no VAT on printed matter in the UK. They must also be shipping to countries outside the EU.

Confused staff, too little guidance on different rates of VAT, a desire to err on the safe side, not bothered because of so few customers in the UK.....you name the reason!

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15 hours ago, maico said:

 

I asked Marklin Trix why they don't ship to the UK anymore and this was their reply:

 

"Thank you for your letter dated 09 August 2021.
Unfortunately, delivery is not possible until we receive the UK tax number. Due to the Brexit, delivery is not possible at the moment.

We regret that we cannot send you any other reply.

Please stay well.
With kind regards
Your Märklin customer advisor
Frank Mäder"

 

So, they have applied for a UK VAT number and will collect it for HMRC ?

 

I'm a sole trader with a lowish turnover and canceled my VAT registration last month after 29 years. The changes coming in both the UK and EU VAT reporting are too much hassle for the likes of me!

 

If you're after Trix/Minitrix models from a UK supplier I can highly recommend Scograil.

 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwj41J71ls_yAhUkRUEAHSq_CL4QFnoECAoQAw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.scograil.co.uk%2F&usg=AOvVaw3EjVHs36wAqftSm9TdWUV6

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4 hours ago, maico said:

 

I don't understand why the publisher would get confused, there is no VAT on printed matter in the UK. They must also be shipping to countries outside the EU.


It’s not that simple, if they:

  • Include a personalised letter then VAT may apply.
  •  If they include vouchers for money off anything in the uk, VAT may apply.
  • If they were to include free gifts VAT may apply (an example would be a printed card building kit such as the Metcalfe buildings model rail or BRM have given in the past).

and even when no VAT is due there may potentially be a customs processing fee to declare that nothing is due…

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17 hours ago, maico said:

 

I've normally found it cheaper to buy from German dealers for NOS models, direct or via eBay, rather than UK ones who source from Guagemaster the UK distributor.

Some items were cheaper from the Marklin-Trix website. My last purchase last year was for a replacement Portescap Athlonix coreless motor @ 35 euros + a few bits of track with their standard 8 euros shipping rate.
That's half the price of the same motor (without flywheel) from UK factors like RS Components!

 

In the past yes, it was often cheaper, but we are no longer "in the past", so, again, give the UK retailers a chance.

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5 hours ago, SimonBoulton said:

 

Gaugemaster seems to be the main problem when it comes to UK retailers being able to compete with the European ones. Looking at the prices on their website, they just seem to change the Euro price number into pounds, so basically a 10% plus increase straight away. 

GM are not the "bogeyman" - the discount structure for Flesichmann for example has not changed since retailers bought direct from Fleishmann. Roco now follow the same discount structure.

 

If you want to look for a bogeyman look towards the European manufactures who favour european dealers in both price & supply.

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37 minutes ago, SamThomas said:

GM are not the "bogeyman" - the discount structure for Flesichmann for example has not changed since retailers bought direct from Fleishmann. Roco now follow the same discount structure.

 

If you want to look for a bogeyman look towards the European manufactures who favour european dealers in both price & supply.

Cut the politics please.

The title of the thread is about buying and selling models to/from Europe not about buying European models from UK based retailers.

Bernard

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6 hours ago, Jonboy said:


It’s not that simple, if they:

  • Include a personalised letter then VAT may apply.
  •  If they include vouchers for money off anything in the uk, VAT may apply.
  • If they were to include free gifts VAT may apply (an example would be a printed card building kit such as the Metcalfe buildings model rail or BRM have given in the past).

and even when no VAT is due there may potentially be a customs processing fee to declare that nothing is due…

 

Where are you getting these points from? I filled in my own VAT returns for years and have not heard of any of them.

VAT is a tax on sales which is paid by the end consumer, why would it be raised on free gifts or personalised letters?

 

I get magazines in the post from abroad and there are no customs fees.

 

 

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5 hours ago, maico said:

 

Where are you getting these points from? I filled in my own VAT returns for years and have not heard of any of them.

VAT is a tax on sales which is paid by the end consumer, why would it be raised on free gifts or personalised letters?

 

I get magazines in the post from abroad and there are no customs fees.

 

 

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/zero-rating-books-and-printed-matter-for-vat-notice-70110


Gifts
VAT notice 701/10 section 6.7 - Promotional Items in Magazines.

 

Letter

VAT notice 701/10 section 4.3 - letters

 

As you would see there are numerous exemptions within the full notice but not quite as simple as “no VAT on printed matter” when working commercially.

 

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I bought a quality made in Europe polo shirt online late afternoon yesterday for 44€.   Arrived lunchtime today, delivered from Belgium to Scotland by DHL in under 24 hours, no extra charges.

Edited by cessna152towser
typo
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3 minutes ago, cessna152towser said:

I bought a quality made in Europe polo shirt online late afternoon yesterday for 44€.   Arrived lunchtime today, delivered from Belgium to Scotland by DHL in under 24 hours, no extra charges.

Yet.. The couriers have been known to follow up with import / Vat charges anything up to a month after delivery..

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Coming to the conclusion that size of box is a factor, four recent deliveries :

 

A HO coach from a Lippe - no issues

A few bits and pieces again from Lippe in a small box - no issues

A loco chassis and electrical components from Belgium - no issues (but took 3 weeks.....)

A HO train set from Lippe (I want the loco and a spare Z21 handset) - demand for payment from the Parcel Force

 

All had the correct customs paperwork and the only difference is that the train set comes in a bigger box ?

 

Re the cost of things only the Train set is available in the UK, Gaugemaster have it for £329, but I paid 237euro's plus another £50 to have Parcelforce deliver it, a very significant saving.

 

My previous issues were caused when I brought something at a discount price and the shop wrote the full retail price on the VAT form hence a much larger customs payment.

 

Stay safe,

 

Neil

 

 

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The train set was probably the only one over the limit of £135 at which the retailers are no longer supposed to collect VAT on the UK's behalf. Having said that, you can't rely on not being charged on cheaper items. In the past month I purchased two model Railway items from private European eBay sellers — one in France ad one in Spain, no VAT paid, both accompanied by full and correct customs documentation.

 

The French item (value £40) was delivered by Parcelforce — I had to pay VAT plus the handling fee. The Spanish item (£135) was delivered by Royal Mail — no VAT or handling charge.

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21 hours ago, Bernard Lamb said:

Cut the politics please.

The title of the thread is about buying and selling models to/from Europe not about buying European models from UK based retailers.

Bernard

I am simply pointing out some facts that some people may not be aware of.

 

Also the facts that the savings that people used to make buying from European retailers may not what they used to be.

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Just received a large box of MBR trees from Poland value around €80 with no charges from RM . As an aside, they're stuff is of just excellent quality. The only downside is that they now no longer accept PayPal so payment has to be made via bank transfer 

 

This contrasts with a shipment (German ebay) of similar value in April and I received a charge of £28 from DHL since they were charged that by HMRC. It was paid as there was no way to contact HMRC to argue that I had been fleeced by them. I put it down to experience. It all does seem to be rather random as I recently purchased a Bemo loco from a model shop in Florida for $370 and no charges were raised. Perhaps there are different rules applied to shipments from non EU countries........as for US postage charges ....well that's another matter!

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There is no different treatment of EU and US imports.

Buying from Ebay is not a guarantee of no VAT charges on delivery.  However if the seller uses the Global Shipping Program then, and only then, Ebay does take care of the VAT charges.  Most professional sellers avoid the GSP, so your VAT charge could have been legitimate.  

 

I agree however that there seems to be a degree of randomness in the application of charges.  Also here in France where I have received 2  locomotives from the same UK seller.  The first attracted VAT charges (+handling) the second arrived without charge.  

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On 27/08/2021 at 20:11, SamThomas said:

I am simply pointing out some facts that some people may not be aware of.

 

Also the facts that the savings that people used to make buying from European retailers may not what they used to be.

Nevertheless, stick to the topic, please.

You have expressed your opinion, no need to keep expressing it.

Thank you,

John E. (moderator for this section of the forum).

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Since Brexit, I was affraid all would become very difficult and expensive to get modelrailways from the UK, but after a half year now all has setteled, it is still very easy to become the items I want.

Hattons, is no difference since before, because they do all the customs and payments.

The other experience I have with mine D class loco from Rails, it was a little expensier, because the 30,- pound payment for pre ordering, was not calculated in the invoice , so dutch customs charged only vat on the rest amount of the loco, so, this vat free part of 30,- pound payed half the handling fee.

From Kernow I now have had a few shipments, they offer UK vat free for the Netherlands, so this Dutch VAT is 21%  1% more than UK VAT, and since 1 July the dutch post have a new handling fee of 4 euro if the amount is below 150,- euro and above this amount it is 8,- euro if you do the payment of the VAT and handling fee online, you can also do the payment on the post agency if you like, but you pay a few euro more then.

Before the 1 of July you could only do the payment on the post agency, and the handling fee was always 13,- euro whatever the cost of the items.

Since  1 July they have changed this to a lower handling fee.

And because the items are UK VAT free shipped, with exchange from pound to euro it is often that a loco of 100,- pound is the same in euro[ 100,-]

with the exchange so it is still below that 150,- ,

Very easy if I am not ordering more than 150,- pound it still stay in euro 150, with the exchange rate of 1 pound is 1,19 euro.

Than dutch post is taking only 4 euro for handling fee, with only 1 euro more on dutch vat is is only 5,- euro more expensivier for this loco than before brexit.

And since Kernow have a new offer of shipping , a  amount of 8,- pound RM or 15,- pound by courier, it has now become my prime shop for Hornby and Bachmann, my last order was last Monday the 23 th and 20 minutes later I got an email my order was ready for shipment later the day.

My direct order from Hornby took 9 days before they shipped it, after I send them a email when my order was handeld.

So my conclusion for ordering from the UK is, it still goes very well, and I have nothing to complain about it,

Only extra I have to do , is doing a payment online, thats all.

But all this is depending if a shop will deliver UK VAT free, if not I will not order there.

Maybe this is different for other countries to ship from /to UK.

But dutch post have addopt it very well to the new situation.

Edited by Cor-onGRT4
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On 26/08/2021 at 14:24, maico said:

 

I don't understand why the publisher would get confused, there is no VAT on printed matter in the UK. They must also be shipping to countries outside the EU.

 

There is no VAT on printed matter ONLY applies to the UK. In most EU countries there is VAT on printed matter. In the Netherlands it is 9% and on the shipping 21% VAT if not shipped with PostNL, Germany 7% and on the shipping it is 19% VAT. 

 

In order to have second VAT administration in the UK my bookkeeper charges € 200 quarterly and an accountant will charge at least double....so it is for most companies not cost effective to supply B2C just because of the additional administration costs. 

This is the ONLY reason why so many EU companies don't request for a UK VAT number and prefer that items are supplied by a retailer. Then you DON'T need an UK VAT number.

 

If no dealers want to supply these magazines or distribute models directly you are either depending on a EU retailer or a local reseller. And yes without going into the price discussion again there will be additional costs.

 

I am very pleased that a UK dealer started distributing our motors and upgrade kits just for the administration costs as all UK orders where handled through Ebay now.

 

So will Märklin and many others get a UK VAT number.......Not very likely!

Mine took just 2 days (But I wont use it!), so they could already have one for months now.

 

Ed

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A relative who lives in an EU country (Denmark) sent a parcel to us containing  different presents for family members, customs declaration filled in on package showed them correctly as  books, clothes and children's toys,  category as gift.  (The declaration had a different section if they had been commercial or high value items.). Tracking showed the package had been through customs both ends, delivered without anything to pay and had taken about a week, but that included a bank holiday weekend here.

 

The only railway items here were the 2 books, which were for me. We had also sent a parcel the other way to Denmark with a birthday gift in it, that arrived with no problem.

So apart from having to fill in the customs declarations,  everything went as before.  Which is reassuring (so far!)

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Recent experience from SM42 Towers 

 

Gifts sent to Poland including children's clothes and dried fruit, no charges 

Gift sent to mother in law  (picture frame) VAT charge to pay on collection from local post office 

None of these parcels exceeded £40, and the frame was sub £20

 

Personal import last month in hand luggage, with purchases split between the two of us, separate receipts and below the £390 limit ( including a loco and some wagons) 

 Through green channel at airport, no issues. In fact no-one appeared to be present to check

 

All in all a mixed bag, erring towards the no charges side, albeit a limited sample

 

Andy

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In August I had 7 parcels from Hatton's and 3 of them were stopped for customs!  No logic to it seems to be random, as the largest parcel (still well under the €150 limit) came with out any problem but a low value item which was £12.00,  approx. €18.00 with postage got stopped for VAT!  As previously mentioned, Hatton's were good at refunding the VAT & charges. 

Also took over a week for the 3 items to be delivered once I paid the charges!!. 

 

Never had a satisfactory response from either customs or An Post about this despite sending several emails, Anpost saying its customs and customs saying its Anpost!!!

 

Last week had a Hatton's parcel with no problem at all.

Maybe someone in customs don't understand the parcel labelling properly or do not like Hatton's parcels..

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2 hours ago, irishmail said:

 

Maybe someone in customs don't understand the parcel labelling properly 

I think that’s the principle problem - could be down to staff training, new staff or simply that staff are free to interpret rules anyhow they please.

Certainly here in Greece, it’s simply not worth the risk. All the local courier companies here are free to hit incoming parcels with obscene charges and you need to know the rules inside out and speak fluently in order to fight them.

Plus, the government here lets them get away with it all.

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I think understanding remains a massive problem, even in HMRC. If its not the taxing itself then its the import duty (which is 0% on model trains)

 

I ordered two very similarly priced items (goods wagons in 1 gauge) in Germany from two different shops. Given the price I was expecting VAT (which was correctly charged) but on one also got lumbered with import duty charges which (given the documents had 95 03 00 3000 on them) had all the correct codes etc on. Just some customs officer deciding this needed not only VAT.....what do you do. Parcelforce just sits there and takes the payment, you can't talk to them about it and you either pay (which in this case was an extra £40,- odd) and try and claim it back from HMRC (forms galore) or Parcelforce sends the item back.

 

Lets hope I have better luck with an Item from Spain.

 

Kind Regards

Robert

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2 hours ago, Robert_N-Nm said:

I think understanding remains a massive problem, even in HMRC. If its not the taxing itself then its the import duty (which is 0% on model trains)

 

I ordered two very similarly priced items (goods wagons in 1 gauge) in Germany from two different shops. Given the price I was expecting VAT (which was correctly charged) but on one also got lumbered with import duty charges which (given the documents had 95 03 00 3000 on them) had all the correct codes etc on. Just some customs officer deciding this needed not only VAT.....what do you do. Parcelforce just sits there and takes the payment, you can't talk to them about it and you either pay (which in this case was an extra £40,- odd) and try and claim it back from HMRC (forms galore) or Parcelforce sends the item back.

 

Lets hope I have better luck with an Item from Spain.

 

Kind Regards

Robert

I  have had various items since Brexit and most have arrived smoothly, sometimes with charges, often not.  One parcel in June was held at the local Parcelforce depot for a week, and having received no letter asking for a payment, I phoned Parcelforce and was given the reference number and the amount due. This seemed high, but with no details and no options, I paid and then received the parcel.  Like Robert N Nm, I found duty had been charged despite the correct tariff code, so I posted off the BOR 286 form and associated paperwork to claim a refund. I heard nothing, so I phoned HMRC only last Thursday and after a 20 minute wait I was told that there is currently a delay of around three months in processing refund claims.  So clearly, the systems are creaking and what may or may not be charged seems hit and miss at present.

 

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