VMA131Marine

In his tweet explaining why his online store would no longer be shipping to UK addresses, William Shatner mentioned it was going to cost £1,000 to get his business registered with HMRC. It wasn’t clear if that is the total of fees paid to HMRC to register or if it represents the cost of legal consultation to fill out the forms and submit them.

No matter how well off someone is, nobody goes into business to lose money .... well, not deliberately anyway.

And, instead of using that knowledge and experience to help us understand the impact of this change you decided snark was the way to go. Noted!

What a fascinating and baffling comment. You can read about the changes for yourself: Outline of the changes For imports of goods from outside the UK in consignments not exceeding £135 in value (which aligns with the threshold for customs duty liability), we will be moving the point at which VAT is collected from the point of importation to the point of sale. This will mean that UK supply VAT, rather than import VAT, will be due on these consignments. The new arrangements will also involve the abolition of Low Value Consignment Relief, which relieves import VAT on consign

Enforcement will be straightforward through customs checks. What it will do is make some products absolutely unavailable to U.K. modellers unless they physically go outside the country to buy them.

Everything that comes into the UK goes through customs so it’s easy to stop a package on which VAT has not been paid. I’d guess that the UK will tell overseas shipping companies and postal services that they will be liable for the VAT (+penalties most likely) for any package they try to import into the UK which does come with proof of appropriate VAT payment.

Easy! The UK will tell foreign mail services and private shipping companies (eg UPS, DHL, etc) that they won’t accept any shipment for import unless it comes with proof VAT has been paid. They will then probably make the shipping company liable for that VAT if they import something without such proof.

I would guess that before the U.K. accepts any mailed package for import it will have to have proof that VAT was collected and paid to HMRC. I don’t know how they would differentiate gifts from commercial packages, but my recollection is that gifts aren’t exempt from VAT either. The bottom line is most vendors outside the U.K. will just stop selling to U.K. buyers; it just won’t be worth the hassle.

This looks like bad news for U.K. modellers who buy from overseas: tl;dr - The UK is eliminating the VAT exemption for shipments valued under £15 and they are making overseas vendors responsible for collecting VAT on shipments to the U.K. This will likely mean most overseas vendors will no longer ship to the U.K. to avoid the £1000 cost of submitting the forms to register with HMRC and the hassle of submitting VAT payments to the UK. I’d guess on-line marketplaces (OMPs) like Amazon and eBay will be unaffected but they will now collect VAT on purchases from outside the UK. Individual reta

So, because some aren’t doing well it means none can succeed? The US has 8 preserved battleships and 5 preserved aircraft carriers (plus one that could be preserved). Many of them have been in operation as museums for decades. That’s not an argument that preservation is not feasible. In addition, it’s reasonable to think that none of these preserved ships will last forever. Age and corrosion will likely get them all eventually, and that’s okay too. Nothing lasts forever, in the meantime people can enjoy them for the history they represent.

It should be pointed out by those who say saving ships like this is too difficult that the US has preserved: 4 Essex-class carriers (Intrepid, Lexington, Hornet, and Yorktown), a Midway-class carrier (Midway), all 4 Iowas, 2 South Dakota’s (Alabama and Massachusetts), USS North Carolina, USS Texas, USS Olympia, a Cleveland-class cruiser (USS Little Rock), a medium-size fleet’s worth of destroyers and submarines, as well as two Liberty ships and two Victory ships. It’s still hoped to save the USS John F Kennedy (CV-67). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_museum_ships_of_the_Uni

Maybe not one person, but a group of 4 or 5 or more might. Making a group order would save on shipping charges and allow the group to split any import fees.

I wish AZModel well with this release, but I’m quite happy with the Airfix and Tamiya kits in my stash. I would have been more tempted if the leading edge slats and flaps were separate parts.

That’s lovely! It’s too bad nobody does an aftermarket fix for the visor and nose. You can see here how much shorter the visor is in the real thing.

That would be my guess. It’s really a shame because both of those kits were really well done and not at all difficult to assemble (although the wings on the Eindecker are quite fragile once they’re in place).