EUR VAT on eBay goodies

[Gryffindor]

In case anyone is planning to buy anything from mainland Eur on eBay, I've noticed a recent change - no doubt because we've jut left it.

Some items will now attract 20% VAT on top.

This has shown up in my watch list but doesn't appear on individual item pages - see the attachments.

   
item page - no mention of VAT

   
same item in my watch list

I don't know (yet) whether the VAT applies to just the item price or the item+shipping price, and I don't know why some items (i.e. some old calculators for example) are not subject to it when others are.

This slap-on has appeared since 31st Dec on used items (old calculators) that I have been watching for a while, which had no VAT on them before 31 Dec. Now they do. I don't know about new items.

So it might apply if you were to buy some PSA spares for instance. Keep an eye out!

[GraemeT]

Hi - this article sums up the current position  for the likes of Amazon & eBay. As I understand it until you hit the £135 upper 'trip' limit then you have to pay UK VAT on stuff you get via eBay from the EU.  
eBay have to collect the UK VAT.
However from private sellers this should not apply but HMRC's definition of what is, and is not, a business seller is probably more draconian that yours or mine.
Shipping and handling should be exempt if listed independently of the purchase price.

Basically it's just like buying stuff in from US or Canada has been - under £135 you pay VAT, over that you hit Excise Duty so different rules apply with different fees and usually the carrier will collect/charge those - I do not know if the same will apply for EU sales over £135 but I'd suspect so.

Find a friend in the EU who can dropship you parts as 'gifts'   Just sayin'

[edit] p.s. eBay will probably get their act together at some point as regards EU listings - most of the US stuff that I tend to buy has all the VAT/Excise fees displayed on the listing page which is very handy

[Gryffindor]

Thanks GraemeT. I agree that having all the costs posted up front (more or less) on US items is helpful - it mostly steers me away from buying in the US! I I did, a calculator with a converted asking price of £10 would cost me between £30 and £40 with shipping and duty.

Your link speaks of "the abolition of Low Value Consignment Relief, which relieves import VAT on consignments of goods valued at £15 or less" - it's probably just a coincidence, but I have found where US sellers allow offers to be made, that if I make an offer of $15.00 or less on an item, then the duty fee disappears (though not always I hasten to add). I recently asked a US seller if he would accept $15 instead of $25 for his item if I also allowed him to charge me $40 for the shipping instead of $30, because it would have negated another $25 in duty. But he didn't get it. From his end, of course, there was no duty to be seen.

On who is or isn't a private seller, I would think that falls to eBay, or rather to what declaration its sellers make when setting up their accounts. But on the other hand there are clearly a great many 'private' sellers who raid local charity and junk shops for goodies to sell online (no, I don't mean Tim Brooke-Taylor), so they would be clearly running a business whatever kind of eBay account they have.

One last point which might be worth putting up here - the tax only applies to consignments worth less than £135, not individual items in consignments. So it might be worth buying something else from the same seller if it takes your total before shipping over £135, rather than give it to the tax man anyway (depending on the value of the item you want of course). You can always resell that extra item later on!

I did consider your dropshipping friend idea, and it would work in some situations I'm sure, but because it would involve two shipping fees (i.e. to and from the friend) it probably defeats its own object for occasional small purchases.

[Gryffindor]

Forgot to include your point on excise duty - you are probably right and my extra item idea is probably not a good one.

[cancunia]

Interesting times! Does this mean that we can now buy stuff from the EU VAT free?

..........

Just found this on eBay after seeing VAT on cheap stuff from China, welcome to the new normal!

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/buying/payin...9048_BUYER

Items delivered to the UK
Value Added Tax (VAT) generally applies to purchases by UK consumers, and prices on eBay.co.uk are shown inclusive of VAT.

Starting 1 January 2021, eBay is required to collect VAT on certain orders delivered to UK addresses:

Orders up to £135 sent from outside the UK
Orders where the item is located in the UK, but the seller is not a UK seller

[Gryffindor]

Thanks cancunia.

Since earlier posts I've noticed more and more that some offerings of the same thing are subject to VAT and some are not; I imagine that the difference must be the seller's status as either private or business.

[GraemeT]

Interesting times! Does this mean that we can now buy stuff from the EU VAT free?

Strictly speaking yes. But......
In general consumer (B2C) items for export usually do not pay VAT in the country of seller but buyer has to pay their 'local' VAT on arrival. This would now apply to EU > GB and vice-versa. However it needs for the EU business to pull their VAT off the price offered to us on OMP (eBay) here but that is going to take time - for the moment you'll maybe be paying double VAT as a consumer. 
Private stuff on eBay would previously have come over from the EU with no VAT at all but chances are eBay are going to try and collect UK VAT on it until they get some sort of system in place to differentiate private sellers from business. Maybe they have already? 
B2B VAT can be claimed back after jumping through paper hoops but on consumer stuff - caveat emptor.
I think HMRC are going to be run off their feet for the next couple of months until the dust settles...........

[cancunia]

Double VAT is what I'm worried about, that & VAT on private sales.
Pull up the drawbridge, this is an island after all!

[Gryffindor]

And may Google bless all who sell in her.

[GraemeT]

There could be a limited business opportunity there for somebody to forward bulky/valuable consumer stuff EU > UK along the lines of forward2me.com who I've used US > UK. Trouble is that companies like that will quickly cotton on if they have not done so already - once the dust settles I reckon they'll be honing in on the market created (in fact no idea why they haven't yet but maybe the late 'deal' caught them on the hop).
Had a bit of a play on fleaBay and it does seem a bit random on the vat collection - maybe worth keeping an eye on sellers who ship via their own websites/eBay/Amazon and see if the prices vary by 20% or so from time to time :-)