Buying and Selling models to/from Europe

[melmerby]

The Amazon item was PCB terminal blocks to the value of £20.77

The ebay item was copper clad FR4 board to the value of about £14

 

Recently I also purchased a replacement Chicony PSU for my laptop from a Chinese company that had a UK e-commerce portal, again with all prices quoted VAT paid.

The method of delivery of all these items was a Chinese carrier's label to the UK whereupon a UK label was affixed over it for onward delivery, two of them RM and one EVRI (ex-Hermes)

 

Apart from the Chicony PSU which was untracked from China to the UK the items were fully tracked including their trip in and out of Customs.

Edited April 18, 2022 by melmerby

[njee20]

2 hours ago, Andy Hayter said:

UK ineptitude in collecting monies due??

 

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

I’m not sure it’s ineptitude so much as lacking the ability to reasonably collect it. 
 

Obviously they wanted retailers to collect VAT on behalf of HMRC on low value orderd; and whilst they may theoretically say they want to do it in the event the retailer is not set up there are evidently practical constraints to that, if the order is even flagged as such. Presently it appears to be a great loophole. Keep your orders below £135 and nothing further is charged, regardless of whether UK VAT is levied on the sale. 

[Allegheny1600]

Can we keep the discussion on here to what the title states, please.

 

It’s difficult enough to decide whether or not to keep various statements visible when they do refer the original subject, I am NOT going to try and understand the full international situation in order to monitor recent posts.

If you wish to continue to discuss international (non EU) shipments, please start a new topic in a different area.

 

Thanks,

JE

[melmerby]

This is the HMRC paragraph on buying goods through an online market place (Amazon, ebay etc.):

 

Overview

Consignments of goods with a value of £135 or less that are outside:

• the UK and sold through an online marketplace to customers in Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) will have UK supply VAT charged at the point of sale
• the UK and EU and sold through an online marketplace to customers in Northern Ireland will have import VAT charged

The £135 limit applies to the value of a total consignment that is imported, not the separate value of individual items that are in a consignment.

 

Where those goods are sold through an online marketplace, the online marketplace will be liable for the VAT.

 

Online marketplaces will also be liable for the VAT on goods of any value that are located in the UK at the point of sale and sold by an overseas business through an online marketplace.

 

These rules will not apply to the import of:

• consignments of goods containing excise goods – find out more about importing excise goods to the UK from the EU
• non-commercial goods (for example, gifts) – find out more about tax and customs for gifts sent from abroad

 

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vat-and-overseas-goods-sold-to-customers-in-the-uk-using-online-marketplaces

Edited April 19, 2022 by melmerby

[etendam]

From July 1st all selling platforms in Germany have to check whether business sellers are registered for the German Verpackungsgesetz. Businesses selling to Germany must register and pay yearly for the amount of packaging they sent to Germany. Ebay/Amazon and other selling platforms will remove the ads from business sellers from July 1st who aren't registered.  More EU countries will adapt this system in the future. (They look how the system will work in Germany)

 

Manufacturers who don't make use of dealers in EU countries will also face that Model train items (Trains, Decoders & Track parts) must also register for the WEEE (recyling of electronic equipment/components) in many EU countries. For instance: Direct sellers to German end users must appoint a German representative who is responsible for the recycling. In the Netherlands they can register themselves. If the manufacturer isn't registered then the dealer who sells the items to these country must be registered. When you make use of dealers than the dealers must be registered in many countries. Each country has it own rules regarding the WEEE !

 

These new rules will make it very difficult for box shifters and Manufacturers to do business with certain EU countries especially if the sales in a certain country is very low. lt is the responsibility for manufacturers & sellers to keep yourself updated about these regulations for each country in an EU market with constant changing rules for each member state. So after the Brexit some new hurdles arrived. Another thing that will change in the near future is the CE marking.

 

Ed

Edited May 29, 2022 by etendam

[icn]

On 19/04/2022 at 02:47, njee20 said:

Obviously they wanted retailers to collect VAT on behalf of HMRC on low value orderd; and whilst they may theoretically say they want to do it in the event the retailer is not set up there are evidently practical constraints to that, if the order is even flagged as such. Presently it appears to be a great loophole. Keep your orders below £135 and nothing further is charged, regardless of whether UK VAT is levied on the sale. 

That truly is surprising. EU countries, or at least Germany, will simply perform the normal import process for any goods that are missing the IOSS paperwork, meaning receiver pays taxes and duties and a processing free (and there are quite a few UK sellers who continue to send to the EU without IOSS). Then again the UK solution is quite pragmatic, the taxes collected likely exceed the implementation costs for lower valued parcels.

  

On 19/04/2022 at 12:05, Allegheny1600 said:

It’s difficult enough to decide whether or not to keep various statements visible when they do refer the original subject, I am NOT going to try and understand the full international situation in order to monitor recent posts.

If you wish to continue to discuss international (non EU) shipments, please start a new topic in a different area.

 

 

I'm somewhat confused - selling to/from Europe includes non-EU countries (Norway, Switzerland, Ukraine, etc.) too.

 

17 hours ago, etendam said:

From July 1st all selling platforms in Germany have to check whether business sellers are registered for the German Verpackungsgesetz. Businesses selling to Germany must register and pay yearly for the amount of packaging they sent to Germany. Ebay/Amazon and other selling platforms will remove the ads from business sellers from July 1st who aren't registered.  More EU countries will adapt this system in the future. (They look how the system will work in Germany)

Private sellers are apparently excluded from these new rules anyhow:

https://www.ihk.de/stade/innovation-umwelt-energie/umweltschutz/verpackungsverordnung-vollstaendigkeitserklaerung/online-shops-und-ebay-haendler-3991432

 

I have to agree it looks like a complete nightmare for small businesses though. Fortunately there seem to be some companies offering to do the registration work for you (e.g Lizenzero), but it certainly adds to the costs.

[etendam]

3 hours ago, icn said:

That truly is surprising. EU countries, or at least Germany, will simply perform the normal import process for any goods that are missing the IOSS paperwork, meaning receiver pays taxes and duties and a processing free (and there are quite a few UK sellers who continue to send to the EU without IOSS). Then again the UK solution is quite pragmatic, the taxes collected likely exceed the implementation costs for lower valued parcels.

  

I'm somewhat confused - selling to/from Europe includes non-EU countries (Norway, Switzerland, Ukraine, etc.) too.

 

Private sellers are apparently excluded from these new rules anyhow:

https://www.ihk.de/stade/innovation-umwelt-energie/umweltschutz/verpackungsverordnung-vollstaendigkeitserklaerung/online-shops-und-ebay-haendler-3991432

 

I have to agree it looks like a complete nightmare for small businesses though. Fortunately there seem to be some companies offering to do the registration work for you (e.g Lizenzero), but it certainly adds to the costs.

 

As a business we should collect the UK VAT on orders below £135 and pay it to HMRC but if we want to use DPD as a carrier then we must also pay the UK VAT to DPD. So then we have to pay twice...? So it is much easier to work with dealers. 

 

All other buyers from NON EU-countries paid before the Brexit en Ebay sales the VAT twice and the company didn't have to hand the VAT over to the TAX authority as it was an Export sale. This is why I didn't understand why those buyers didn't opt more for direct purchases as then they had a VAT discount. Since the Brexit Ebay solved this for all NON EU countries.

 

You must register for the Verpackungsgesetz & make use of a company like Lizenzero. Payment will be done by Lizenzero.

Some smaller businesses are now swapping to pirvate sellers on Ebay but the commisions are different and if you sell to often or a few times the same items then you will be seen by Ebay as a business seller. Business sellers must also take care of the WEEE if the sell model trains, electronics and track. Therefor it will be easier to work with dealers as well. German dealers must of course register for the WEEE then. The CE will follow.

 

The EU is working hard to have all imports getting back to the dealers/resellers within the EU again.

 

Ed

[Nick C]

22 hours ago, etendam said:

From July 1st all selling platforms in Germany have to check whether business sellers are registered for the German Verpackungsgesetz. Businesses selling to Germany must register and pay yearly for the amount of packaging they sent to Germany. Ebay/Amazon and other selling platforms will remove the ads from business sellers from July 1st who aren't registered.  More EU countries will adapt this system in the future. (They look how the system will work in Germany)

 

Manufacturers who don't make use of dealers in EU countries will also face that Model train items (Trains, Decoders & Track parts) must also register for the WEEE (recyling of electronic equipment/components) in many EU countries. For instance: Direct sellers to German end users must appoint a German representative who is responsible for the recycling. In the Netherlands they can register themselves. If the manufacturer isn't registered then the dealer who sells the items to these country must be registered. When you make use of dealers than the dealers must be registered in many countries. Each country has it own rules regarding the WEEE !

 

These new rules will make it very difficult for box shifters and Manufacturers to do business with certain EU countries especially if the sales in a certain country is very low. lt is the responsibility for manufacturers & sellers to keep yourself updated about these regulations for each country in an EU market with constant changing rules for each member state. So after the Brexit some new hurdles arrived. Another thing that will change in the near future is the CE marking.

 

Ed

Sounds like you need some kind of 'single market' for goods, with consistent rules and regulations...

[Enterprisingwestern]

6 minutes ago, Nick C said:

Sounds like you need some kind of 'single market' for goods, with consistent rules and regulations...

 

It's a shame I could only "agree", I wanted to post "funny" as well!

 

Mike.

[Ian Morgan]

 

This interesting diagram, from Wikipedia, shows the current position of the UK with respect to the other European countries. The UK is still in the Council of Europe, and in a Common Travel Area with the Republic of Ireland. The UK is no longer part of anything else, and as such, is now treated like any other country around the world. Why are people surprised?

 

[Nigel Emery]

Posted here as this is the main thread regarding changes following Brexit although the specifics involve a Czech loco being shipped from Italy. Hopefully it’s useful information for anyone ordering from Italy where the sender is using Poste Italaine.

Unfortunately unlike with say DHL tracking from Germany the Post Italaine tracking doesn’t give the converted Parcelforce tracking number so you only have the Poste Italaine tracking to go on. This throws out some rather scary messages such as:

“Problems reported during the checks for the release of the shipment”

“It was not possible to deliver due to non-payment of fees by the recipient. The shipment will be available for collection at the SDA Operations Center SDA Operations Center United Kingdom The recipient can: - collect the shipment within the terms indicated on the notice, by presenting an identity document - delegate another person to collect it (if foreseen on the notice of non-delivery) with a copy of your identity document - book a new delivery attempt (if foreseen on the notice of non-delivery)”

Fortunately I tried not to panic and just sat tight and sure enough today a normal Parcelforce letter arrived telling me what VAT I needed to pay. This also contained a Parcelforce tracking number that revealed the parcel has followed a completely normal process and is now at my local Parcelforce depot awaiting payment of the normal charges (VAT plus £12 handling).

So the advice is sit tight, try not to panic when the Post Italaine tracking gives out scary messages and in a few days time all should be resolved!

[Jonboy]

Did you try the Post Italiaen tracking number in the parcelforce website? Overseas parcels often track through on the same number.

[Re6/6]

Nigel, may I ask what the value of the shipment was please? My reason for asking is I'm wanting to buy a Swiss loco from an Italian supplier costing €285 and was wondering what the 'extras' are likely to be.

 

Thanks

 

John

[Andy Hayter]

Your costs should be 20% of the €285 - €57 converted at whatever exchange rate is deemed to be valid for the day - plus a handling charge by the delivery company as fees for the collection of the VAT.

 

No duties due on a model railway item.

 

Edit to add:  If there are delivery charges on top, then these are added to the purchase price in order to calculate the VAT

Edited July 8, 2022 by Andy Hayter

[Enterprisingwestern]

25 minutes ago, Andy Hayter said:

Your costs should be 20% of the €285 - €57 converted at whatever exchange rate is deemed to be valid for the day - plus a handling charge by the delivery company as fees for the collection of the VAT.

 

No duties due on a model railway item.

 

Edit to add:  If there are delivery charges on top, then these are added to the purchase price in order to calculate the VAT

 

Or you could try the Spanish method

 

 

Mike.

 

 

Edited July 8, 2022 by Enterprisingwestern

[Nigel Emery]

5 hours ago, Jonboy said:

Did you try the Post Italiaen tracking number in the parcelforce website? Overseas parcels often track through on the same number.

Yes, and in the Royal Mail website just in the case the UK leg was RM rather than Parcelforce, it didn’t work in either! DHL from Germany change the tracking number but the Parcelforce tracking number is in my experience quoted in the DHL tracking!

[Nigel Emery]

3 hours ago, Re6/6 said:

Nigel, may I ask what the value of the shipment was please? My reason for asking is I'm wanting to buy a Swiss loco from an Italian supplier costing €285 and was wondering what the 'extras' are likely to be.

 

Thanks

 

John

Invoice value was approx £225 GBP and the charge was exactly what I would have expected it to be ie 20% of the total invoice value (including postage) plus the £12 Parcelforce handling fee. Actually it was a few pence out probably as a result of currency changes. The 20% is VAT, as others have said the duty on model railway items is zero regardless of the country of origin so there shouldn’t be a duty charge. It has never happened to me but I guess it’s possible that Duty might be charged if the sender used a wrong commodity code on the package. If that did happen you would have to pay to get the item delivered and then later appeal to HMRC. You can’t argue the charge before delivery. 

Edited July 8, 2022 by Nigel Emery

[jjb1970]

I may be lucky, but I haven't had any problems. 

 

I think something which gets lost in much of the discussion is it is not just a UK - EU issue, there is also a world outside of Europe. I order model trains from UK to Singapore and I have to say that those dealers happy to sell to overseas customers deduct the VAT before payment and so show prices without VAT, delivery doesn't take much longer than internal UK delivery. 

 

Before leaving England I used to order Italian outline HO and German HO from shops in Italy and Germany and again never had any issues. Yes you are liable for VAT and a handling fee, but having bought a lot of stuff from the US and Asia over the years it's no different to what I was doing before for non-EU stuff. You look at the price, calculate the various deduction and then re-imposition of VAT and make a decision. And for those shops which fall within the requirement to register for UK VAT, it's not a UK thing, Australia did it before us and the EU is also doing it.

 

Ultimately it's all part of buying from overseas. 

Edited July 9, 2022 by jjb1970
typos

[icn]

8 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

I may be lucky, but I haven't had any problems. 

 

I think something which gets lost in much of the discussion is it is not just a UK - EU issue, there is also a world outside of Europe. I order model trains from UK to Singapore and I have to say that those dealers happy to sell to overseas customers deduct the VAT before payment and so show prices without VAT, delivery doesn't take much longer than internal UK delivery. 

 

Before leaving England I used to order Italian outline HO and German HO from shops in Italy and Germany and again never had any issues. Yes you are liable for VAT and a handling fee, but having bought a lot of stuff from the US and Asia over the years it's no different to what I was doing before for non-EU stuff. You look at the price, calculate the various deduction and then re-imposition of VAT and make a decision. And for those shops which fall within the requirement to register for UK VAT, it's not a UK thing, Australia did it before us and the EU is also doing it.

 

Ultimately it's all part of buying from overseas. 

Indeed, it's something I also brought up earlier in the thread. Being in a single market simply got rid some of the usual inconveniences when trading within that market (that's the whole point of the single market after all), but those inconveniences already applied for the rest of the world.

 

Actually - as someone who is in Europe but not the EU - Brexit has brought about one benefit: British sellers now consistently remove VAT and attach the right customs paperwork. Prior to Brexit I'd keep running into issues where sellers mistakenly charged VAT (that was rare though) or forgot to attach the paperwork (that was more common, and has resulted in many delays in the DHL warehouse).

 

All that said, I have to say I prefer the US model where there's generally no charge at the border (unless subject to duties) and therefore no additional customs handling fees, instead you pay use-tax for out-of-state purchases yourself. The disadvantage of this approach is that of course there's plenty of fraud.

 

[bbishop]

To report my latest experience.  Three Spur Null Gr36 coaches purchased from MBW.  The order was placed pre-Brexit so the invoice was sent by e-mail including 19% MwSt.  An e-mail generated a revised invoice without MwSt  and the funds were transferred.  

A German firm naturally uses DHL, for which one must be grateful as they are the best carrier.  They sent me an e-mail requesting tax and duty.  Tax was VAT, but duty clearly wasn't.  The items were described as "Model Train" so there was zero import duty but the DHL handling charge of £11-00 was itemised as duty.  Confused me for a while.  Payment by credit card and a cardboard box appeared 24 hours later.

So no problems and actually a wee benefit, that better not be noted here.  Bill

 

[Nigel Emery]

Something I wasn’t aware of until recently (apologies if this is already known) is that HMRC publish an exchange rate once a month that is valid for a calendar month. This is the rate used when taking the value in euros and calculating the VAT in GBP. If can be useful if you’re trying to keep under the magic £135.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hmrc-exchange-rates-for-2022-monthly

Someone on a mailing list I’m on had an invoice in July of €157 so missed being under the £135 by €0.19/£0.16! Had the package been assessed by customs in August the small change in exchange rates would have pulled it under £135 and the charges would have been avoided.  

[NS Peak]

I know Hattons are vat registered with eu countries such as Germany and The Netherlands and of course Amazon is large enough in its retail presence to be that registered  in most EU countries.  But I was wondering which if any other UK based retailers took the step to be VAT registered in other EU countries,  I suspect Hattons is probably unique this regard  but I would love to be proven wrong

[Jonboy]

The problem is the requirement in almost every EU country to have an in state fiscal representative who shares liability for VAT payments and compliance. This costs to implement and then further ongoing reporting (often in a different language) etc etc. and is likely not viable for many small businesses.

 

(Of course you only need to register in one EU state, for sales to all states but it’s still an onorous requirement)

[LimboBrit]

10 hours ago, NS Peak said:

I know Hattons are vat registered with eu countries such as Germany and The Netherlands and of course Amazon is large enough in its retail presence to be that registered  in most EU countries.  But I was wondering which if any other UK based retailers took the step to be VAT registered in other EU countries,  I suspect Hattons is probably unique this regard  but I would love to be proven wrong

I have made fairly recent purchases from Kernow and The Model Centre whereby UK VAT was deducted before shipment. Dutch BTW was then charged by the courier. I don't know if this means that they are registered for VAT in the EU. To me it doesn't really matter so I was wondering, what is your concern? I'm fairly sure Hornby are registered in the EU if you want to buy directly from them.

[Andy Hayter]

@LimboBrit

That means the shop is not registered in the EU.  If it were they would have charged BTW at the checkout and the courier would have just delivered.

 

My concerns about the process are that post and packaging are charged at cost including the VAT.  When my goods arrive in France, I am then correctly charged TVA (VAT) on the cost of the model, the packaging and the post - so TVA on the UK VAT and then on top of that I get charged a handling fee.  It starts to add significantly more than the 20% UK VAT removed from the sales price.

 

And just to add a bit of another minor gripe; many stores offer free UK P&P (with a lower purchase value) but as a foreign purchaser I am charged P&P at cost.  Now I accept the cost of shipping is quite a bit more but the UK equivalent postage cost is not removed and the packaging costs would I assume be exactly the same.  And remember I pay French VAT on all of those elements.