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VAT nightmare incoming


Vlamgat9

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On 1/16/2021 at 1:48 PM, Stephen said:

I've just seen on FB last night that the following companies are suspending direct sales to UK customers due to post brexit VAT 

 

Flying Leathernecks

Fightertown Decals

Reid Air Publications

Sprue Brothers Models

Mr Paint

 

That's a shame as I do tend to order from the likes of Fightertown from time to time. Caracal decals however has stated that they will continue to supply UK customers directly. No word from Furball decals as yet.

 

9 hours ago, ckw said:

But will HMhobbies be able to continue stocking Mr Paint? Seems unclear at the moment.

 

Cheers

 

Colin

I echo what Stephen has said about HM hobbies, a very good service there. Premium Hobbies also stock MRP and they have issued a statement saying MRP are, and will continue to supply UK dealers. They have ceased selling to individuals such as you and I.

 

I imagine HM will continue to get their stock if Premium Hobbies are.

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On 16/01/2021 at 20:44, Jon Bryon said:

 

I'm quite surprised there's a significant market for buying direct from the USA to the UK. In my experience the postage charges are pretty horrendous plus the pound has been weak against the dollar for a long time.

 

Jon


I confess I agree Jon. I used to buy from Squadron in the USA when their sale was on and had some good bargains what, 10 or so years ago. In recent times USMail has hugely increased their postal charges to the point where the postage charged by US Mail as the carrier was as much as the item being purchased. I heard it had killed some of their sales. I have not bought off them for years now for that reason. It’s not stopped me getting stuff but not from the USA unless it’s an item only available from a US manufacturer so there are no alternatives. 
 

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9 hours ago, JohnT said:

In recent times USMail has hugely increased their postal charges to the point where the postage charged by US Mail as the carrier was as much as the item being purchased. I heard it had killed some of their sales. 
 

 

In November I ordered some 1/48 F9F wing tip tanks from Model Monkey in the USA. Parts were $12, postage was $15. I find it hard to believe that sellers like this are going to have their income seriously affected by the VAT change. There can only be a handful of people like me in the UK willing to stump up $27 for two rather small lumps of resin...aren't there? :)

 

Jon

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I had another web chat with an HMRC advisor yesterday, my sixth in total!

This time the advisor really made an effort, she seemed to understand the difficulty of the situation and tried to get the right information, taking a long time between lines written, apologising for taking so long...

But, she ultimately failed. She had to escalate the problem to a higher level of customer support and I was booked in for a phone appointment in February (they will call me, hopefully). She said there are so many strands of information and updates and the issue of selling from abroad to the UK touches both the VAT and the import/customs department with separate sets of rules and guidelines and they don't really come together.

So yes, it's all going swimmingly. We're past mid-January and even at HMRC themselves they don't really seem to know how regulations that you are supposed to follow NOW are actually implemented in reality.

It's not that I'm not trying - I now have a UK VAT number but I won't start charging VAT from UK customers and sending parcels before I know for certain what will happen after the parcels have left Japan.

J

 

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1 hour ago, JeffreyK said:

I had another web chat with an HMRC advisor yesterday, my sixth in total!

This time the advisor really made an effort, she seemed to understand the difficulty of the situation and tried to get the right information, taking a long time between lines written, apologising for taking so long...

But, she ultimately failed. She had to escalate the problem to a higher level of customer support and I was booked in for a phone appointment in February (they will call me, hopefully). She said there are so many strands of information and updates and the issue of selling from abroad to the UK touches both the VAT and the import/customs department with separate sets of rules and guidelines and they don't really come together.

So yes, it's all going swimmingly. We're past mid-January and even at HMRC themselves they don't really seem to know how regulations that you are supposed to follow NOW are actually implemented in reality.

It's not that I'm not trying - I now have a UK VAT number but I won't start charging VAT from UK customers and sending parcels before I know for certain what will happen after the parcels have left Japan.

J

 

 

Jeffrey, your commitment is to be commended ! Hope you manage to sort the matter as soon as possible !

 

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2 hours ago, JeffreyK said:

I had another web chat with an HMRC advisor yesterday, my sixth in total!

This time the advisor really made an effort, she seemed to understand the difficulty of the situation and tried to get the right information, taking a long time between lines written, apologising for taking so long...

But, she ultimately failed. She had to escalate the problem to a higher level of customer support and I was booked in for a phone appointment in February (they will call me, hopefully). She said there are so many strands of information and updates and the issue of selling from abroad to the UK touches both the VAT and the import/customs department with separate sets of rules and guidelines and they don't really come together.

So yes, it's all going swimmingly. We're past mid-January and even at HMRC themselves they don't really seem to know how regulations that you are supposed to follow NOW are actually implemented in reality.

It's not that I'm not trying - I now have a UK VAT number but I won't start charging VAT from UK customers and sending parcels before I know for certain what will happen after the parcels have left Japan.

J

 

 

Thanks for the information.

 

Unfortunately I think a lot of people think that these issues are politically motivated and that firms should be able to just work around them if they wanted - the unfortunate Dutch cycle company that was the first to say they would have to stop UK sales has apparently received a lot of online abuse.

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4 minutes ago, bentwaters81tfw said:

Well I had a phone battery arrive this morning from China via AliExpress.

Didn't pay any VAT, and no stoppages on arrival.

 

Let's see what happens with my Thai package due later this week.

Posted before the Jan 1st perhaps.

 

The amount of Extra Work now involved just to transit a truck across the UK is a Staggering. Before the truck was sent with a CMR - that was it.

 

 Now a PBN needed to board the ship from Ireland to UK, A Goods Movement Reference is need to enter GB, A Kent Access Permit to get to Dover, An ENS to get into France and an SIEXIT reference needed to enter France  you could not make this up! 

 

thankfully Stena have put an extra ship going direct to France to bypass the UK.

 

 

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Just for clarification, I didn't feel a like, sad or confused would have been right. 
It's too absurd for that. 

30 minutes ago, George Norman said:

The amount of Extra Work now involved just to transit a truck across the UK is a Staggering. Before the truck was sent with a CMR - that was it.

 

 Now a PBN needed to board the ship from Ireland to UK, A Goods Movement Reference is need to enter GB, A Kent Access Permit to get to Dover, An ENS to get into France and an SIEXIT reference needed to enter France  you could not make this up! 

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Just seen a post on the IPMS workbench page about the VAT changes.

 

Whilst the UK has changed the rules WEF 01/01/2021, the EU are implementing the same changes in July 2021. So... all these companies complaining about the implementation of the rules now and not shipping into the UK, what are they going to do when they have to do exactly the same for shipping into the EU? The value has been set at 150 Euros (about £135 - give or take exchange rates), which seems to be the value being talked about on here.

 

Further to this I had a quick look at a little bit of the background, and it would seem that the rules have been delayed a little bit. They were supposed to have been implemented on the same day as we broke away from the European Union, and the same time we changed our rules on VAT on imports from other countries. So instead of the EU changing their rules on 01/01/21 they have delayed by 6 months to 01/07/21. 

 

(Would like to say something else, but every time I write it out, it ends up sounding like a political comment, when it isn't, so I'll leave my comment as is....)

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29 minutes ago, treker_ed said:

Just seen a post on the IPMS workbench page about the VAT changes.

 

Whilst the UK has changed the rules WEF 01/01/2021, the EU are implementing the same changes in July 2021. So... all these companies complaining about the implementation of the rules now and not shipping into the UK, what are they going to do when they have to do exactly the same for shipping into the EU? The value has been set at 150 Euros (about £135 - give or take exchange rates), which seems to be the value being talked about on here.

 

Further to this I had a quick look at a little bit of the background, and it would seem that the rules have been delayed a little bit. They were supposed to have been implemented on the same day as we broke away from the European Union, and the same time we changed our rules on VAT on imports from other countries. So instead of the EU changing their rules on 01/01/21 they have delayed by 6 months to 01/07/21. 

 

(Would like to say something else, but every time I write it out, it ends up sounding like a political comment, when it isn't, so I'll leave my comment as is....)

 

I may be wrong but I think you will find that the EU is giving foreign low-value sellers the OPTION to register for VAT in the EU and if they don't the VAT will be collected from the purchaser in France, Germany or wherever on delivery of the goods.  The UK is making it COMPULSORY for foreign low-value sellers to register with HMRC and account for UK VAT, a situation made even worse by the fact that we have just left the EU customs union.

 

A German seller selling to the Dutch market will simply carry on as before. A German seller selling to the UK market now has to register with HMRC, submit quarterly returns and account for UK VAT even if he has only sold half a dozen decal sheets. Is it any wonder they are complaining and, in many cases, refusing UK orders?

 

 

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3 minutes ago, Skodadriver said:

 

I may be wrong but I think you will find that the EU is giving foreign low-value sellers the OPTION to register for VAT in the EU and if they don't the VAT will be collected from the purchaser in France, Germany or wherever on delivery of the goods.  The UK is making it COMPULSORY for foreign low-value sellers to register with HMRC and account for UK VAT, a situation made even worse by the fact that we have just left the EU customs union.

 

 

Taken from the article I got the info from  (which is an online journal for tax specialists, and was the first to appear in my search)

 

These changes aim to ensure taxation in the member states of consumption which, for goods, usually is the state where the goods are made available to the client, and, for services, the state of residence of the beneficiary. They also impose obligations on "electronic platforms and extend the use of the ‘one-stop-shop’ (OSS) scheme for the payment of VAT."

 

This could give the impression that it's mandatory.  The VAT changes are an EU wide change, delayed to 1/07/21 due to Covid-19 by the EU, but UK implemented anyway on 01/01/21. From what I've read, these changes have been in the pipeline for quite a number of years, even before the referendum to leave the EU. We've gone with them to keep a certain amount of harmonisation with tax laws. Seems to me that we would still be in the same situation we are now even if we had stayed in the EU, with queries as to the changes are being implemented by HMRC, how they are affecting businesses,  how they affect the importation of goods and how do they affect the individual wishing to buy something from overseas. 

 

 

 

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33 minutes ago, treker_ed said:

.... Seems to me that we would still be in the same situation we are now even if we had stayed in the EU, with queries as to the changes are being implemented by HMRC, how they are affecting businesses,  how they affect the importation of goods and how do they affect the individual wishing to buy something from overseas. 

 

 

 

We might have been in the same situation with sellers in the USA, Mexico, Canada and so on but we would not have been in the same situation with sellers elsewhere in the EU if we had remained in the Single Market and the Customs Union (big clues in both titles!). 

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1 hour ago, treker_ed said:

Seems to me that we would still be in the same situation we are now even if we had stayed in the EU

As has been explained above, this is factually incorrect. Sales across the EU are not affected in anyway by this. 

I can still purchase direct from Revell.de, Italeri.com, Special Hobby, AZ, KP, and the other 25 large and small EU-based MFGs that appear on just the FIRST page on a scalemates search; and from any of the other 746 model shops with an online presence based in the EU (source, another quick search on Scalemates) without worrying about any extra costs or fees. So can everyone else in the EU.  But not anyone in GB. 

 

Only on imports into the EU. Even then it will be optional and require registration in only one of the 27 to access all of the 27.  (Source https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.revenue.ie/en/tax-professionals/tdm/value-added-tax/part10-special-schemes/vat-ecommerce-rules-1-july-2021/vat-ecommerce-rules-1-july-2021.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjU7pqRhYfuAhWionEKHcrLDBIQFjABegQIBxAF&usg=AOvVaw16l_6fW0_Nal-k64lXsgoZ )

So to keep up this nonsense that it's nothing to do with Brexit is just that. Nonsense.

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My comment seems to have been well and truly taken out of context and twisted intentionally. 

 

I was not referring to the situation that we are in as being outside of the EU and having issues - I was referring to the problems that we are having with regards the confusion that the HMRC are having in implementing the new rules.

 

If we were still members of the EU, the HMRC would still possibly be having the same problems with implementation having to deal with traders from countries such as USA, Canada, Brazil, etc. 

1 hour ago, Skodadriver said:

We might have been in the same situation with sellers in the USA, Mexico, Canada and so on but we would not have been in the same situation with sellers elsewhere in the EU if we had remained in the Single Market and the Customs Union (big clues in both titles!). 

I never mentioned anything about problems trading with the EU - I was as mentioned above referring (even though I didn't say it - and maybe i should have to prevent being misquoted), to countries outside of the EU hence why I stated about IF WE HAD REMAINED IN THE EU. That would imply no trading problems with Poland, France, Germany (IE Single market & Customs union members!) But possible problems with countries outside of that membership - Canada, USA, Australia, New Zealand etc. So please do not try to make me look like I was implying something that I was not.😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠

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5 hours ago, treker_ed said:

Taken from the article I got the info from  (which is an online journal for tax specialists, and was the first to appear in my search)

 

These changes aim to ensure taxation in the member states of consumption which, for goods, usually is the state where the goods are made available to the client, and, for services, the state of residence of the beneficiary. They also impose obligations on "electronic platforms and extend the use of the ‘one-stop-shop’ (OSS) scheme for the payment of VAT."

 

This could give the impression that it's mandatory.  The VAT changes are an EU wide change, delayed to 1/07/21 due to Covid-19 by the EU, but UK implemented anyway on 01/01/21. From what I've read, these changes have been in the pipeline for quite a number of years, even before the referendum to leave the EU. We've gone with them to keep a certain amount of harmonisation with tax laws. Seems to me that we would still be in the same situation we are now even if we had stayed in the EU, with queries as to the changes are being implemented by HMRC, how they are affecting businesses,  how they affect the importation of goods and how do they affect the individual wishing to buy something from overseas. 

 

 

 

 

No, definitely not compulsory. I was just trying to find the relevant paragraphs from the EU legal bulletin I had saved but I forgot where I saved it :doh:... You may want to pass that on to the IPMS board as well.

 

If you want to register, you need to register for the "Import One Stop Shop" on one EU country, but as things stand now, you may need to do that via an intermediary, resident and tax paying person in that EU country.

If you don't you can still send your parcels as before and customers can order without pre-paying VAT. It's just that there's no low value VAT-free threshold any longer after July 1st so any and all parcels will get VAT plus a handling charge levied on.

J

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8 hours ago, treker_ed said:

If we were still members of the EU, the HMRC would still possibly be having the same problems

I'll try this again.

If GB was still in EU, the EU system would be in effect (as you've noted delayed by 6 months time). IOSS for the big boys (Amazon etc) and the option of carrying on as before (post it in and let the customer pay the fees on delivery) for the one man operation.

Not in the current situation where the UK Revenue (even who don't seem to know whats supposed to be happening..) needn't and couldn't have gone on this solo run. But the fact remains Brexit happened, and here you are.

 

For someone who's adamant that they're not talking about Brexit versus EU,

you keep bringing it up a lot...

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Leave the political fault mud slinging out of this thread gents. The topic is for info on how to get the items. Any further handbag swinging will not be looked upon kindly by the mods.

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19 hours ago, roym said:

As has been explained above, this is factually incorrect. Sales across the EU are not affected in anyway by this. 

I can still purchase direct from Revell.de, Italeri.com, Special Hobby, AZ, KP, and the other 25 large and small EU-based MFGs that appear on just the FIRST page on a scalemates search; and from any of the other 746 model shops with an online presence based in the EU (source, another quick search on Scalemates) without worrying about any extra costs or fees. So can everyone else in the EU.  But not anyone in GB. 

 

Only on imports into the EU. Even then it will be optional and require registration in only one of the 27 to access all of the 27.  (Source https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.revenue.ie/en/tax-professionals/tdm/value-added-tax/part10-special-schemes/vat-ecommerce-rules-1-july-2021/vat-ecommerce-rules-1-july-2021.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjU7pqRhYfuAhWionEKHcrLDBIQFjABegQIBxAF&usg=AOvVaw16l_6fW0_Nal-k64lXsgoZ )

So to keep up this nonsense that it's nothing to do with Brexit is just that. Nonsense.

 

Its the Continent now Roy or the L.M.S. really or my Loft for Kits.

 

Thanks God I am not bothered with Etch and Resin these days.

 

As Roy says VAt is paid in the EU at source. No other bother or Worrys

 

Also with Address Pal (a Proxy UK address to Facilitat UK People that wont post outside the UK - yes they exist!) you might get charged VAT twice on that service as a UK supplier to Ireland may not be aware its coming to the EU with out telling them before hand. I will wait until someone tries that out first!

 

 

 

 

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3 minutes ago, Robert said:

I suppose that when we get back to air travel, that kits we bring back will have to be declared and anything else we buy ?

 

Regards

Robert

you have limits as an adult and a child of what you can bring in before taxes are levied. 390 is a lot of Plastic if you manage not to get pressies for the missus, Well used to be, 2 x 1/144 747SPs you wont get much change outa it LOL!

 

UK customs allowance

If you are travelling to the UK from outside the EU, you're allowed to bring a certain amount of goods such as alcohol, tobacco, perfume, souvenirs for your own use or as gifts. Your personal allowance includes up to 1 litre of spirits, 200 cigarettes and up to £390-worth of other goods.

 

I think kids have a reduce limit.

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