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Brexit & Shipping to the EU


vince14

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I don't get how anybody outside the UK would collect vat, the kickback normally is that you can claim back vat that you spend on your own expenses, so if you fill in the UK vat return form do you then knock off vat that you might have spent in your home country?!!

Btw I've had my fingers burned buying from the US you can calculate that whatever it is you're buying ends up being double the cost by the time you get your hands on the item. What with the astronimic postage, plus a handling fee plus import duty plus vat on the whole lot.Never again.

I personally am not worried by the amount of overseas orders, as being in the UK is where our main market is  ( which is true for 96% of UK small and medium enterprises) and the amount we get from abroad has always been negligible and we are not vat registered anyway. 

Graham 

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I think I now have a better handle on to problem and as far as I can make out (after a fun afternoon talking to HMRC and only getting "new" staff you have to book a call to talk to the man with the answers my slot is 0.300 on the 29th Dec !!) but calling a few old colleagues from my mining days when I used to buy a boatloads of coal for import to the UK ,that are still into import/export all had the same question why make the point of sale collect the VAT with the potential of millions of new VAT registrations.

 

Then the penny dropped.

I think it was about 10 years plus ago credit card fraud was really crazy so the UK government passed a law that all companies using credit card for payment  had to use a payment service provider (PSP) customer orders from you site the PSP takes the money then passes the order to you with the money less his "cut" so you have no sight of the card details.

 

Now Online Market Providers/Places (OMP)

Checking into OMP's online the first hit I had was an article "OMP's an excellent opportunities for PSP's"

So as far as I can work out the OMP is another add-on for your site so I think it works like this your site or PSP has a OMP attached with it  and you will set up to import to the countries that require you to collect the VAT.

Now I think (please don't quote me as even HMRC is a bit in the dark about this)

Order placed on your site (includes the relevant VAT for the country of delivery)

PSP takes the money and OMP takes the VAT off

Then they both have their pound flesh.

Then you get what's left.

When you confirm dispatch the OMP transfers the VAT to HMRC

So HMRC collects ALL the customs money due automatically with no staff or Parcel Farce involved.

Also it's up to the OMP to register with HMRC but you can register directly but I think this is not the option as Kevin from Ultracast was given the UK's finest runround as only HMRC can do, they don't want companies to register individually it means work.

 

It was a bit of an eye opener but how little the HMRC have let businesses and the general public know including me !

So Sorry Kev for my first post but I think the OMP will be the way to go  but just as a finish PSP or OMP or collectively "Grabbing Bastards"

 

Will try to keep you updated.

Bob 

Now !! finish a 10 year old Madeira, or open a 12 year old Glen Dronach single malt ???????????:mental:

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  • 4 weeks later...

Frustration bump.

 

I only found out about this on Monday, Jan. 11th when Stamps.com emailed me a notification about it. I did a search and found this thread before creating a new one.

 

What a mess!!!


I just spent about 2 hours registering with HMRC, before giving up (they don't make it easy!).  

 

I got all the way to the payment "schemes" section before my brain shut down.

I didn't even get to this part:

Non UK residents must provide one piece of primary evidence which consists of a copy of government issued photo identification which can include:
    passport
    photo drivers licence
    national identity card
You must also provide two additional pieces of evidence which can be copies of:
    a mortgage statement
    a lease/rental agreement
    a birth certificate
    a marriage or civil partnership certificate
    a decree absolute or decree of dissolution certificate
    an official document from an employer that contains your name, date of birth and Tax Identification Number

 

Seriously??? This after they already got all of my business info and SSN?

 

I skipped to the next section which was bank info. I only glanced at it before walking away but I gather that I needed to have a UK bank Account???
I don't know...
When I returned the page had reset and when I logged back in they started me back at the very beginning.

 

Have any of you successfully applied for this? Please email or PM me if you can help guide me through the process! Zactoman@Zactomodels.com

 

In the mean time what to do?
Block UK customers?

 

What happens to the packages I already shipped this year not knowing about this?
Will those customers be able to claim them if I haven't registered for the VAT?
Will they be able to pay the VAT themselves and if not, what happens to the packages?

 

:BANGHEAD2:

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The mess is also existent in the other direction. Four orders I made in December were unfortunately noticeably delayed because of covid. They are still 'somewhere' between UK and my home. I shouldn't pay any tax as they were ordered and paid far before the 1st of January. However, they were sent (or still have to be sent) after Brexit implementation. So wait and see...:( 

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5 hours ago, Zactoman said:

In the mean time what to do?

Block UK customers?

 

2 hours ago, LSP_Kevin said:

That is seriously what some vendors are doing.

Kev

Sadly, I just did this.

Now I've got the UK, one of my favorites, on a short list with several unsavory and third world countries. :crying:

 

 

On 12/16/2020 at 8:44 AM, Kagemusha said:

Apparently, ebay.com will be collecting the UK VAT on all sales, so we will continue to sell to our UK customers from there.

 

If there is something on our website that you would like to purchase which is not listed on our ebay store (such as decals), you can email us and we will set up an ebay listing for that item so that you can purchase it from our ebay store.

I am considering something similar and have questions to those who know eBay (I've never sold anything there...).

If I were to start an eBay store and just list a few items, could I send an eBay invoice (I assume you can do invoices there?) to a wanna-be UK customer for any item in my catalog, even if it's not listed on eBay?

 

Chris

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1 hour ago, Zactoman said:

I am considering something similar and have questions to those who know eBay (I've never sold anything there...).

If I were to start an eBay store and just list a few items, could I send an eBay invoice (I assume you can do invoices there?) to a wanna-be UK customer for any item in my catalog, even if it's not listed on eBay?

 

Not really, you can only sell what you have listed on ebay. You can't send an invoice to a buyer unless you have a confirmed sale (and obviously the buyer has to be ebay user too). You could do a workaround, but the buyer would still have to buy at least something you have listed first, then you could send an invoice to the buyer and then add (pad) the extra item cost into the "shipping" line when you send the invoice (ebay still takes fees out of shipping costs anyway).

 

You could be setting yourself up for issues though doing that, either sellers could rip you off (claiming items sent isn't what they received, overcharged (false) shipping charge, etc) or ebay itself could find out somehow that you're using their system against their policy (ebay also is against using them to sell items outside of ebay).

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3 hours ago, Zactoman said:

 

Sadly, I just did this.

Now I've got the UK, one of my favorites, on a short list with several unsavory and third world countries. :crying:

 

 

I am considering something similar and have questions to those who know eBay (I've never sold anything there...).

If I were to start an eBay store and just list a few items, could I send an eBay invoice (I assume you can do in`voices there?) to a wanna-be UK customer for any item in my catalog, even if it's not listed on eBay?

 

Chris

 

I recently bought a few books from a UK retailer who has an ebay outlet as well as a shop, bought from him many times over the years, asked if I could add a title from his on-line store, which he did, he added it to the invoice as sellers charges, there's also a discount option as well, so provides some flexibility. 

 

There was a news item yesterday about Scottish fishing boats taking their catch to Denmark rather than their home port, looks like that industry is falling off a cliff into financial ruin.

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I thought you could create private ebay listings?

Edit: you can, is this not exactly what you need? https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/selling/listings/listing-tips/private-listings?id=4161

 

hmm.. perhaps not.. just hides buyer info.. I'm sure there was a way to do this via ebay

maybe this https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Archive-Selling-on-eBay/How-can-I-sell-an-item-to-one-individual/td-p/3653207 ?

Edited by Subodai
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39 minutes ago, Kagemusha said:

 

I recently bought a few books from a UK retailer who has an ebay outlet as well as a shop, bought from him many times over the years, asked if I could add a title from his on-line store, which he did, he added it to the invoice as sellers charges, there's also a discount option as well, so provides some flexibility. 

This sounds along the same lines as I mentioned, still would need to buy something on ebay before the seller can send invoice with padded/fake charge to account for additional item.

 

25 minutes ago, Subodai said:

That though is really just a standard buy it now listing. You'd still have to list the item, I think Chris is specifically asking about selling item he has that would not be listed. If going the buy it now listing route and the effort of listing it, then just create it permanently and enter the actual quantity for sale and keep it posted for everyone to buy.

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Well I've just broken my golden rule of not buying from the US, I've bought a bulk order of 100 model railway axles from Ebay and it worked out OK on three fronts, the initial price was good, I paid the import duty up front and the postage was no more than I pay Royal Mail the other way. It was using the global shipping service. But I haven't received it yet so i might end up with something to pay but there is no indication of that.

Graham 

 

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I'm not currently selling on feepay, but may resume soon. As a general rule, I restrict all of my sales to the US, but from time to time someone will ask that I sell outside the US. I may consider that, if the money justifies it, but probably not, just too much of a hassle for a non-business entity like me to mess with.

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7 hours ago, ziggyfoos said:

This sounds along the same lines as I mentioned, still would need to buy something on ebay before the seller can send invoice with padded/fake charge to account for additional item.

As mentioned, I don't know eBay.
I'm not trying to skirt their rules or fees and wouldn't want to fake anything like shipping cost. If I were I wouldn't be asking about it on a public forum.
I had hoped that maybe they allowed custom invoicing, like PayPal, to where a customer could request and receive an invoice and eBay would get their full cut on the sale.
That or an ability to add additional unlisted items to the purchase of a listed item, again with eBay getting their full cut.

 

7 hours ago, ziggyfoos said:

If going the buy it now listing route and the effort of listing it, then just create it permanently and enter the actual quantity for sale and keep it posted for everyone to buy.

I've avoided selling on eBay for 2 reasons:
1. Through the years I've heard and read lots of stories of idiots filing bogus claims and/or leaving fake bad feedback. I'm hoping this is overblown and not much of a problem.
2. I've been warned away by a few other vendors because of the high fees eBay charges, particularly if you have an eBay store. After some initial quick research it doesn't look all that terrible.

 

With my new website coming online I was planning to look into starting an eBay store, but was only going to list a few items with the hope of reaching a wider audience that would ultimately shop at my website.
With this UK thing and the EU coming in July, I'm thinking it might be best to just pull the trigger and list my full inventory.

I'd like to do more research, but need to decide ASAP for my British homies. Looks like a few more sleepless nights ahead.
I'm just hoping it's easier starting an eBay store than it is registering with HMRC...

 

Thanks for all of the input,

 

Chris

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