First import from the EU

[RobinBHM]

To get back to the original point, I ordered three bandsaw blades on 5 February, from Thebandsawshop.com . I would have used Tuff Saws, but they don't post to us Johnny Foreigner types, and I would have used Axminster but they wanted £25 for postage, which seemed a bit steep. This may have been a mistake, and time will tell. The total bill, including postage was £35 for the blades, £10 for VAT and £10 for postage. Total bill £56 and change.

Anyway, my blades arrived this morning, fully labeled with vat amount paid and all the info required, but I still had to pay €25 duty on £35 worth of blades. Rumour has it that if you receive a parcel via DHL they charge a random amount as an administration fee in addition to the duty, which can be anything from €50 to over €100, but I haven't seen that in person.

So, does anyone know who to buy bandsaw blades from in the euro zone? I can't seem to find anyone, not even when searching in German.

Since bandsaw blades are often Swedish manufacture, one would like to think you should have more choice, not less......

 

[RobinBHM]

Having to pay a few pounds more for bandsaw blades is no way comparable to domestic abuse or genocide

You seem to have forgotten....this is a forum for woodworking enthusiasts.

Not being able to buy Tuffsaws bandsaw blades is far worse than genocide.

 

[JohnPW]

Thank you for the info, very interesting. So a seller in say China, selling directly to EU customers has to register for vat with the eu or possibly each individual country, collect the vat and send it to the relevant EU country. Seems like a non tariff barrier to trade with the added bonus of collecting the vat. Very Clever. I wonder how the eu will police this, VAT officers undertaking an unannounced raid on offices in China! VAT inspectors travelling to China?

I wonder if this regulation in uk applies to just the eu countries or all overseas sellers.

https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/business/vat/ioss_en

 

[sploo]

Thank you for the info, very interesting. So a seller in say China, selling directly to EU customers has to register for vat with the eu or possibly each individual country, collect the vat and send it to the relevant EU country. Seems like a non tariff barrier to trade with the added bonus of collecting the vat. Very Clever. I wonder how the eu will police this, VAT officers undertaking an unannounced raid on offices in China! VAT inspectors travelling to China?

I wonder if this regulation in uk applies to just the eu countries or all overseas sellers.

The likes of eBay have already started adding VAT at the checkout for such sellers (who aren't VAT registered); though obviously this doesn't cover purely Chinese based sites selling direct (or rather, I guess they are supposed to do it, but may not).

I've seen reports from a few sellers (e.g. US based) say that they'll have to stop shipping to the UK because it's not worth the cost of the added bureaucracy to collect VAT on behalf of HMRC. I suppose it might be more acceptable if you had to do it for one larger bloc (e.g. the whole of the EU); due to the size of the market making the added costs tolerable - but for a smaller seller, the idea of having to get yourself registered with the tax authorities of multiple countries is just daft.

 

[powertools]

For many reasons we are going through a period of massive change that will take a while for things to settle down.
All I can say is that with all that has happened over the last few months I am happy to live in the UK outside of the EU.

 

[Rorschach]

the idea of having to get yourself registered with the tax authorities of multiple countries is just daft.

I agree, it is daft. But I would add, this isn't a Brexit issue, the government are not forced to have this policy, they chose it. Imports and exports could be made much simpler if they wanted to. So by all means criticise the government for these policies, I am with you on that, but don't blame Brexit or Brexiteers for the policy.

 

[silentsam]

For many reasons we are going through a period of massive change that will take a while for things to settle down.
All I can say is that with all that has happened over the last few months I am happy to live in the UK outside of the EU.

Interestingly the issues with importing things, especially in small quantities, might have the future advantage of things actually being made in the UK. That is depending on how the government (and future governments) approach it.

 

[Jonm]

I agree, it is daft. But I would add, this isn't a Brexit issue, the government are not forced to have this policy, they chose it. Imports and exports could be made much simpler if they wanted to. So by all means criticise the government for these policies, I am with you on that, but don't blame Brexit or Brexiteers for the policy.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vat-and-overseas-goods-sold-directly-to-customers-in-the-uk
See “Overview” looks like it applies to all imports

From 11pm on 31 December 2020, consignments of goods with a value of £135 or less that are outside:

• the UK and sold directly to customers (not through an online marketplace) in Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) will have UK supply VAT charged at the point of sale

I can see that for buyers it is better, the total price is known at time of purchase, no nasty surprises when goods arrive having to pay uk vat plus admin charges by the courier so total price likely to be less.

I suppose if EU is adding bureaucracy to our exporters then we have to do it to their exporters. I suspect that us consumers will end up with less choice and higher prices in some cases. As for us applying these rules to non eu countries it hardly sits well with “global britain” but perhaps WTO rules means we have to apply the same rules to all. To expect companies in China and Outer Mongolia to correctly collect uk vat And send it to us seems far fetched and how it is monitored for fraud I have no idea.

 

[sploo]

I agree, it is daft. But I would add, this isn't a Brexit issue, the government are not forced to have this policy, they chose it. Imports and exports could be made much simpler if they wanted to. So by all means criticise the government for these policies, I am with you on that, but don't blame Brexit or Brexiteers for the policy.

Absolutely - the VAT collection thing is nothing to do with Brexit (and I never claimed it was); it's just happened to come around the same time so has added an extra layer of hassle.

The issue of larger blocs is relevant though (and related to Brexit). I assume (though could well be wrong- so someone shout if I've misunderstood) that a non-EU seller shipping to an EU nation would only need to register for VAT with a single (EU wide) body, rather than having to make arrangements with all the individual tax authorities of the member nations to which they wish to ship. If that is the case then it's less off-putting, due to the huge market size vs the amount of extra bureaucracy. The question then would be whether such a seller would consider it worthwhile to register separately with the UK; something which would obviously have been unnecessary if we hadn't left.

 

[doctor Bob]

When it became compulsory to set up pensions for employee's it was a right pain in the arris. Lots of paperwork, mistakes made, wrong amounts. Drove me nuts. everybody moaned.
A few guys I know said it was the last straw and either got rid of staff to go under the limit or just shut up shop.
Madness, it now takes me an additional 5 mins every 2 weeks to sort pension payments.
I look at the guys who downsized or closed and think, maybe they should have just tried it.

I hate additional paperwork, but I have never encountered anything which hasn't got easier and more refined with experience. Moaning and whinging about it never made it any easier.

Trouble is after 4 years it's now become a hobby for some,
what do you do to relax "I build model railways"
and you "I moan about brexit on a woodworkforum",
"Oh how interesting tell me more, you must have changed loads of peoples opinions"

 

[Jonm]

When it became compulsory to set up pensions for employee's it was a right pain in the arris. Lots of paperwork, mistakes made, wrong amounts. Drove me nuts. everybody moaned.
A few guys I know said it was the last straw and either got rid of staff to go under the limit or just shut up shop.
Madness, it now takes me an additional 5 mins every 2 weeks to sort pension payments.
I look at the guys who downsized or closed and think, maybe they should have just tried it.

I hate additional paperwork, but I have never encountered anything which hasn't got easier and more refined with experience. Moaning and whinging about it never made it any easier.

Trouble is after 4 years it's now become a hobby for some,
what do you do to relax "I build model railways"
and you "I moan about brexit on a woodworkforum",
"Oh how interesting tell me more, you must have changed loads of peoples opinions"

Very interesting comment about new pension regulations and how with time and familiarity it gets easier. I could say the same about quality assurance and the much ridiculed but sensible health and safety regulations, when applied properly.

This post is meant to be about the practical difficulties of bringing goods in from the EU and by and large it has been. We are only 3 months in to using these new procedures not four years.

The discussion about who collects the vat, when and where is actually very relevant to this discussion. Lies told during the referendum process is not relevant and I got drawn in to that one. I actually put the Leave viewpoint which is not my opinion. It is time to stop defining ourselves as Remainers or Leavers, we have a Virus to defeat and an economy to get back on its feet and lives to live.

I have actually learnt a lot about the new procedures from this post and it is helpful.

 

[RobinBHM]

When it became compulsory to set up pensions for employee's it was a right pain in the arris

I never had much of an issue with the workplace pensions, although I did moan a bit about forking out over £500 for the Sage module to do it.

I must admit when my bookkeeper was away and I had to do the submission, I really cocked it up once and had to ring up sage and NEST to sort it out.

 

[MarkDennehy]

Yes,....You dont want to be cutting your meat...!!!

No, no you don't, it makes it very sad.

 

[Sandyn]

no you don't, it makes it very sad

just a scratch!!!

 

[Zedgeezer]

Droogs, I will not be replying to any of your future posts.

As a woodworker, who was looking for woodworking information on this site, I have reported this guy, no animosity, just completely off topic & irrelevant. I understand things can get heated but "mass murder & genocide" do not seem relevant terms to workshop.co.uk!

 

[MarkDennehy]

just a scratch!!!

Just a flesh wound!

 

[artie]

As a woodworker, who was looking for woodworking information on this site, I have reported this guy, no animosity, just completely off topic & irrelevant. I understand things can get heated but "mass murder & genocide" do not seem relevant terms to workshop.co.uk!

If you were looking for woodwork information, why look in the off topic section?

 

[Droogs]

As a woodworker, who was looking for woodworking information on this site, I have reported this guy, no animosity, just completely off topic & irrelevant. I understand things can get heated but "mass murder & genocide" do not seem relevant terms to workshop.co.uk!

Oh my reportedf for being off topic on an off topic thread, how dreadful.

 

[sploo]

Oh my reportedf for being off topic on an off topic thread, how dreadful.

Ah, but was your topic off-topic with regard to the topic of this off-topic thread in the off-topic topic of the forum?

(I'll get my coat)

 

[pgrbff]

Man

I've always "loved" how (on small value items) the charge to calculate the charge is usually bigger than the charge. Obviously you then pay VAT on the charge, and the charge they charged you to calculate the charge

Would it not have been appropriate for the DPD package to have been declared as a gift (or with some low nominal value) - due to that transaction not being a commercial one?

I didn't think that would work. I described them as personal belongings but still had to put a value on them. I'd paid the VAT on them in the UK and in theory at least I shouldn't have to pay VAT twice. Many of the items are used and mine.
I have tried to find out what the current situation is when importing from UK into Italy but if the major companies and many of the couriers are still struggling what chance do I have?