Buying and Selling models to/from Europe

[maico]

On 18/02/2022 at 09:57, Andy Hayter said:

I am not sure it is the Chinese that are providing the subsidy but rather it is the Universal Postal Union (a UN body) which requires national postal services to subsidise the postage cost for developing countries (and yes China is still considered as such).

 

https://www.businesstelegraph.co.uk/uk-retailers-squeezed-by-postal-subsidies-for-china/

 

This explains what is going on although the article is getting on for 4 years old.

 

 Small business in China apply for shipping rebates from their Government.The discounted rates from the destination countries is another matter.

[DCB]

Private sellers such as myself can't risk selling outside the UK, the bureaucrats add taxes and the recipient refuses to pay the unexpected extra and the return postage is excessive so eBay refund them and you lose your item and cost of postage.

Trouble is folk can't understand  "Post to UK Mainland only"   

Can anyone explain (this isn't a non PC joke) Why exactly does it cost three quid to post to one bit of Ireland and thirteen quid to another bit within a stones throw of one another? 

[Enterprisingwestern]

9 hours ago, DCB said:

Can anyone explain (this isn't a non PC joke) Why exactly does it cost three quid to post to one bit of Ireland and thirteen quid to another bit within a stones throw of one another? 

 

Bureaucracy has to be paid for somehow.

 

Mike.

[Robert_N-Nm]

Well got my answer.  

 

They charge the full whack at the previously mentioned shop to cover the 'additional' costs of shipping to the UK. Why does that feel like like a rip off (e.g. a loco of say €260 would normally have €41.51 in VAT in it + €12.99 for shipping. So now they charge me €54.50 for shipping )???

 

Yikes. I guess if I'm desperate I have family in the EU that could 'receive' the package for me.

 

Kind Regards

Robert

 

[SM42]

22 hours ago, Robert_N-Nm said:

Well got my answer.  

 

They charge the full whack at the previously mentioned shop to cover the 'additional' costs of shipping to the UK. Why does that feel like like a rip off (e.g. a loco of say €260 would normally have €41.51 in VAT in it + €12.99 for shipping. So now they charge me €54.50 for shipping )???

 

Yikes. I guess if I'm desperate I have family in the EU that could 'receive' the package for me.

 

Kind Regards

Robert

 

 

If you can visit quite regularly then it would seem to be the way forward.

 

Just remember the £390 import limit in personal luggage and carry the receipt just in case. 

 

So far I have been OK ( this may all change when the UK government gets its act together and employs some customs officials and starts to apply the rules it agreed to) 

 

My favourite shop will split bills  that go over the limit  so that I  can spread them out and stay under limit per visit or they will keep items till my next visit.

On the plus side I now spend less or visit family more, covid restrictions permitting 

On the negative side it takes longer to get to enjoy what you buy.

 

As an aside, the EU has certainly stepped things up. 

Our luggage was checked for prohibited food items at the weekend for the first time since Brexit. 

 

Andy

 

[Enterprisingwestern]

7 hours ago, SM42 said:

Our luggage was checked for prohibited food items at the weekend for the first time since Brexit. 

 

The actualities of British food rationing here in Spain have been ongoing for a while, I'm down to one supplier of (decidedly mediocre) I black pudding from Ireland, although a local butcher is making a half decent fist of making his own, a kind of anglicised morcilla!

 

Mike.

[SM42]

Perhaps we need a national downloadable health certificate for animal and plant based food we can take with us.

 

Seems there are Brexit opportunities for Irish  companies to supply the expats in the EU.

 

Now if we could only persuade some of our favourite model suppliers to set up Irish or UK subsidiaries as required by fate of our geographical location and modelling  preferences 

 

Andy

[railroadbill]

We've received a couple of parcels from relatives in Denmark, summer of last year and just before Christmas, that contained various presents, ie children's toys, clothing, books. Got delivered with no further tax/duty to be paid. So far so good. We sent  a personalised mug to a nephew in Denmark, value £10, eventually he was contacted by Danish post office to pay equivalent of £18 duty... by the time he'd contacted us to find out what the item was, they'd sent it back to us.  This is now happening with a parcel of Christmas presents we'd sent, calendar, chocolates, couple of small craft items, value around £40, to family members before Christmas (beginning of December) and again  it's on it's way back as the amount asked was high. Now when we sent these parcels we attached the customs form we'd been given by the local post office, listed the items and their value.

I can't find on Royal Mail web site any codes for items sent as gifts from one person to another, ie not a commercial transaction, although there are codes for use by businesses selling goods.

So - does anyone know how sending gifts person to person should be done (if it's a VAT issue then we would have paid VAT when we bought the items in the UK anyway). 

Somewhere I've seen a code GB PR which looks like it might imply present but not sure. Just can't find the official answer. Help!

[Andy Hayter]

There is no code for a present.  You have to give the code for each item and yes VAT and possibly duty will be due at the other end.

[cessna152towser]

Already posted under eBay topics a few days ago but may also be of some relevance here.

I sold a job lot of five Hornby wagons on eBay.uk to the highest bidder who happens to be based in Germany.   I had listed them as country of manufacture unknown as they were a mix of four made in UK and one made in China and explained this in the detailed description.   Sale price to highest bidder was  26.08 plus 3.20 domestic postage,  but I see that the buyer has to pay 13.06 postage (presumably an add on for shipping by eBay from their English GSP base to Germany) plus 9.20 import charges which I assume relates to the Chinese product as items manufactured in UK should go into EU tariff free under the withdrawal agreement.   I am committed to GSP as I do not have the buyer's address in Germany so posted the items to eBay GSP address.   My stepdaughter will be here on a short holiday from Germany next week and I am thinking it would have been far cheaper for the buyer if I could have sent the items back to Germany in her luggage so she could have posted them in Germany.    It seems sad that eBay GSP charges for the buyer are so high!   Having read this thread I presume eBay charges include collection of German Mehrwertsteuer, even though for a sale within UK no VAT would be involved (other than the VAT which I pay to eBay on their fees) as I am a private seller.

Edited February 24, 2022 by cessna152towser

[Andy Hayter]

Since you ignored the comments on the other thread where you raised this, and from where you have copy pasted, I will repeat my comments.

 

The £9.20 is the VAT on the purchase plus a commission to cover the costs of handling the VAT, reporting it to the German authorities and actually paying it.

VAT due on your £26.08 sale would be £4.96 (19% VAT in Germany) so a commission of £4.24.  This is much less that the commissions I have had to pay in France - €8 and €15 for the two imports I have had to pay tax on.  

This charge has nothing to do with the fact that some of the goods may have been made in China.

 

The £13.06 covers the UK postage to the GSP - £3.20, the cost of transporting from the UK GSP depot to the German GSP and then the cost of postage/courier from the German GSP depot to the customer.

[cessna152towser]

Thanks Andy, this is most informative.  

Please accept my apology for having missed your comment on the other thread answering these points.   I had mistakenly assumed your post there was in reply to the one by Hayfield so I had glossed over it without assimilating its contents.

[railroadbill]

1 hour ago, Andy Hayter said:

There is no code for a present.  You have to give the code for each item and yes VAT and possibly duty will be due at the other end.

Thanks Andy, just what I needed to know. (And as I feared). 

[admiles]

15 hours ago, railroadbill said:

We've received a couple of parcels from relatives in Denmark, summer of last year and just before Christmas, that contained various presents, ie children's toys, clothing, books. Got delivered with no further tax/duty to be paid. So far so good. We sent  a personalised mug to a nephew in Denmark, value £10, eventually he was contacted by Danish post office to pay equivalent of £18 duty... by the time he'd contacted us to find out what the item was, they'd sent it back to us.  This is now happening with a parcel of Christmas presents we'd sent, calendar, chocolates, couple of small craft items, value around £40, to family members before Christmas (beginning of December) and again  it's on it's way back as the amount asked was high. Now when we sent these parcels we attached the customs form we'd been given by the local post office, listed the items and their value.

I can't find on Royal Mail web site any codes for items sent as gifts from one person to another, ie not a commercial transaction, although there are codes for use by businesses selling goods.

So - does anyone know how sending gifts person to person should be done (if it's a VAT issue then we would have paid VAT when we bought the items in the UK anyway). 

Somewhere I've seen a code GB PR which looks like it might imply present but not sure. Just can't find the official answer. Help!

As has been said you're sending a product/products and it will be treated in exactly the same way by Danish Customs as any commercial shipment. There are no "gifts" as such these days.This means you need (and I believe have) filled out the CN22 Customs declaration form and attached it to the outside of your parcel.  Your relatives will need to pay Danish "VAT" and any import duties liable.

 

The fact you've paid VAT on the goods in the UK isn't relevant as we are (obviously!) no longer part of the EU. 

 

"GBPR" is used by private individuals and non-VAT registered companies when importing goods into the UK. VAT registered companies would use an "EORI" number which is, in effect, their VAT number prefixed with GB (in the case of a GB VAT Number) and followed by "000" (usually).

Again this won't apply to you as a private individual posting items from the UK.

 

There will also be certain foodstuffs that you won't be able to post from the UK into the EU now we are a "third country".

 

The "codes" referred to are known as commodity, tariff or HS codes. They accurately identify what goods are. I can't remember for sure but I don't think their is a requirement for these to be completed on the CN22 declaration (I happy to be corrected on this though!). As long as you provide an accurate description of the items in the parcel the company/authority completing the Danish Customs declaration on arrival should find the codes easily enough.

Edited February 25, 2022 by admiles

[Oldddudders]

Some UK models are available to us darned foreigners via Amazon.uk. I recently bought a Hornby R3716 Merchant Navy for £155, including postage. That appears to be rather less than I might have paid in a UK shop. Amazon parcels sail through customs etc, into France at least, because Amazon is registered here and no-one is demanding extra payments. 

 

OTOH I do hear dreadful tales of gifts and presents, sent privately via Royal Mail, arriving with demands for substantial cash. Nothing I have bought on Amazon.uk has suffered either delay or surcharge. Not worth not exploring?

[Andy Hayter]

Amazon warehouse sales are covered by Amazon's agreements to collect all taxes from delivery into the EU.

Amazon Marketplace sales are in the lap of the gods as to whether you get caught for taxes or not.   Strictly speaking taxes will be due in almost all if not all cases.

[irishmail]

Anpost  are back to their antics once again.  Today in the post had a card telling me I have to pay customs charges on my recent order from Hatton's.   Does not say what it is for until you put in the customs/tracking info on the Anpost website.

 

After last summers shenanigan's with Anpost things appeared to be fine until now.  

 

As usual Anpost customer service were helpful as usual, Not!!!

[Enterprisingwestern]

30 minutes ago, irishmail said:

Anpost  are back to their antics once again.  Today in the post had a card telling me I have to pay customs charges on my recent order from Hatton's.   Does not say what it is for until you put in the customs/tracking info on the Anpost website.

 

After last summers shenanigan's with Anpost things appeared to be fine until now.  

 

As usual Anpost customer service were helpful as usual, Not!!!

 

Twinned with ADT Postales by the sounds of it!

 

Mike.

[icn]

I'm a bit puzzled by all the complaints these days. Taxes have been around for decades, and duties for centuries - and they apply in virtually all countries. Any domestic purchase includes VAT (some small sellers excepted), and duties in the case of imports (those are hidden in the item's cost). Cross-border shipments simply mean that VAT and duties are charged by your country instead of by the seller - so you end up paying that money via the post or courier - but it's still money you would have owed even for a domestic purchase. Of course the EU rules made things a bit simpler in that the seller charged the tax in the country of sale and there was no assessment on crossing the border - but that only applied to inter-EU sales in the first place. And of course post offices and couriers charge some money for the work of assessing and submitting the taxes - but that's just the cost of not being in a single customs area (there's a fair amount of expertise involved in assessing in particular duties for imports).

 

In some countries you can take care of the import process yourself to avoid the fees to the post office/courier (you still pay the taxes), e.g. I've heard of people in Germany having their packages delivered to a customs office - they then go there and file the right paperwork themselves - but that's in no way free either.

 

Even pre-Brexit, anyone dealing with international shipments must have been aware of taxes and duties. It was perhaps a less frequent issue for anyone living in the UK or EU (since there are so many EU shops to choose from) - but it nevertheless existed even for intra-Europe commerce e.g. sales between Norway/Switzerland and EU or any 2 non-EU countries. I live in one of those non-EU countries, the fact that I have to pay taxes and duties on import is just a fact of life and I'm OK with it (I'd prefer a self-declaration system, such as applies in most US states for use taxes, to save me paying the post office processing fees - but I figure most people would cheat on it).

 

Probably worth mentioning: for EU imports the IOSS system helps non-EU sellers simplify their EU customer's life (taxes are charged by the seller and remitted to the EU, so there's no customs processing and fees at the border). Alternatively just remind the buyer about the realities of taxes and duties for cross-border shipments (but surely they're not so stupid to not be aware of them).

[icn]

On 25/02/2022 at 13:28, admiles said:

The "codes" referred to are known as commodity, tariff or HS codes. They accurately identify what goods are. I can't remember for sure but I don't think their is a requirement for these to be completed on the CN22 declaration (I happy to be corrected on this though!). As long as you provide an accurate description of the items in the parcel the company/authority completing the Danish Customs declaration on arrival should find the codes easily enough.

Indeed, codes are optional for private shipments - it's usually stated in the instructions (e.g. those from Royal Mail are here).

[icn]

On 24/02/2022 at 21:44, railroadbill said:

 

So - does anyone know how sending gifts person to person should be done (if it's a VAT issue then we would have paid VAT when we bought the items in the UK anyway). 

 

FWIW the answer earlier in this thread is mostly incorrect (except on the topic of UK VAT which the Danish indeed don't care about for obvious reasons). What you should really do is:

 

1. Check what the Danish rules are - gifts up to DKK 360 (around GBP 40) are exempt: https://skat.dk/data.aspx?oid=2244328 . (You can declare the price after subtracting British VAT of course, because that's not part of the item's value - whether or not you can reclaim the British VAT is a separate question.) If you want to avoid import taxes and duties, make sure your shipment is under this value.

2. Make sure to select the checkbox titled "Gift" on the CN22 - that's the contents box between 1 and 2 as listed on the Royal Mail instructions: https://www.postoffice.co.uk/mail/customs-forms/CN22-form-guide . Do not select any of the other checkboxes.

(And of course declare the items and values as per usual.)

[melmerby]

2 hours ago, icn said:

I'm a bit puzzled by all the complaints these days. Taxes have been around for decades, and duties for centuries - and they apply in virtually all countries. Any domestic purchase includes VAT (some small sellers excepted), and duties in the case of imports (those are hidden in the item's cost). Cross-border shipments simply mean that VAT and duties are charged by your country instead of by the seller - so you end up paying that money via the post or courier - but it's still money you would have owed even for a domestic purchase. Of course the EU rules made things a bit simpler in that the seller charged the tax in the country of sale and there was no assessment on crossing the border - but that only applied to inter-EU sales in the first place. And of course post offices and couriers charge some money for the work of assessing and submitting the taxes - but that's just the cost of not being in a single customs area (there's a fair amount of expertise involved in assessing in particular duties for imports).

 

In some countries you can take care of the import process yourself to avoid the fees to the post office/courier (you still pay the taxes), e.g. I've heard of people in Germany having their packages delivered to a customs office - they then go there and file the right paperwork themselves - but that's in no way free either.

 

Even pre-Brexit, anyone dealing with international shipments must have been aware of taxes and duties. It was perhaps a less frequent issue for anyone living in the UK or EU (since there are so many EU shops to choose from) - but it nevertheless existed even for intra-Europe commerce e.g. sales between Norway/Switzerland and EU or any 2 non-EU countries. I live in one of those non-EU countries, the fact that I have to pay taxes and duties on import is just a fact of life and I'm OK with it (I'd prefer a self-declaration system, such as applies in most US states for use taxes, to save me paying the post office processing fees - but I figure most people would cheat on it).

 

Probably worth mentioning: for EU imports the IOSS system helps non-EU sellers simplify their EU customer's life (taxes are charged by the seller and remitted to the EU, so there's no customs processing and fees at the border). Alternatively just remind the buyer about the realities of taxes and duties for cross-border shipments (but surely they're not so stupid to not be aware of them).

If you buy from a foreign country using e-bay or Amazon (possibly also other sellers) they take the VAT & any duty on the purchase price (up to the cut off point of £135) for HMRC.

The price shown on the website is net and no further cost to the buyer is involved except possibly shipping.

 

I have recently made two purchases, one each from e-bay & Amazon on listings from Chinese sellers (based in Shenzen) both sailed through Customs in the UK.

[Andy Hayter]

5 hours ago, melmerby said:

If you buy from a foreign country using e-bay or Amazon (possibly also other sellers) they take the VAT & any duty on the purchase price (up to the cut off point of £135) for HMRC.

The price shown on the website is net and no further cost to the buyer is involved except possibly shipping.

 

I have recently made two purchases, one each from e-bay & Amazon on listings from Chinese sellers (based in Shenzen) both sailed through Customs in the UK.

 

I have probably mentioned this before but in case not, what is written above is half right.

 

If you buy from Ebay via their Global Shipping Plan or from Amazon warehouse, what is written is correct.

 

If you buy from an Ebay seller who does not use GSP or from the Amazon marketplace, then VAT (or even duties) are not charged at checkout and you could be due a payment on delivery.

 

It is complexities like that that create the problems @icn plus it seems from other posts that the Irish post office do not understand or perhaps abide by the rules and Spanish post office seem to have little or no clue at all.

[melmerby]

56 minutes ago, Andy Hayter said:

 

I have probably mentioned this before but in case not, what is written above is half right.

 

56 minutes ago, Andy Hayter said:

If you buy from an Ebay seller who does not use GSP or from the Amazon marketplace, then VAT (or even duties) are not charged at checkout and you could be due a payment on delivery.

 

 

 

The Amazon Item was from Amazon Marketplace and it stated that price was including VAT.

The ebay item did not have the GSP logo but again stated that the price was including VAT.

 

Comment please

Edited April 18, 2022 by melmerby

[Andy Hayter]

UK ineptitude in collecting monies due??

 

Honestly without knowing what items we are talking about how can I make a serious reply?