Anyone ordered from the EU recently? VAT?

[SparrowHawk]

Hi all, I need to buy some suspension components soon, and it is cheaper buying from EU companies like Autodoc and Buycarparts. They are insisting on me paying VAT to them, but my understanding of the rules is that VAT has to be paid to UK customs/couriers if the package value is over £135. Has anyone made any orders with companies like this recently? Did you end up paying VAT twice? Thanks. Matt

 

[NHN]

Who cares, regardless you have to pay vat & its their responsibility to pay this forward so to speak, its not upto you.

 

[RAF_S7]

VAT is can only paid forward if the value of the goods are deemed to be under £135 in value - i.e. the seller charges you the VAT and has to pay that to the UK Tax Authority.

For goods over £135 in value, these are subject to VAT and Customs import duty, and have to be paid before the goods are released. This is normally done by the seller providing an invoice value to the carrier, who then calculates the uk vat and customs duty due, and you pay that to the carrier before the goods are delivered. i.e. If the shipper is say, FedEx, they will call you or message you saying you have £xx to pay before they will release for delivery (Royal Mail etc all operate a similar system)

tbh, it’s a bit of a minefield, the duty rates are variable, depending on what the goods are, and the carrier can add its own fee for handling the administration associated with all the extra paperwork. Bottom line, purchase price, plus VAT plus Duty, plus shippers admin fee can take you over the UK purchase price…..

 

[SparrowHawk]

Thanks. The above is in line with my understanding of it. If the seller won't remove the VAT (for over £135), it seems I'd end up paying VAT twice, since I'd probably be charged at the point of delivery too. Has anyone experienced this?

 

[SiPie]

Bought 4 wheels and winter tyres from Germany. for RS4. Price was lowered originally slightly by seller making it a decent deal. Royal Mail delivered 3 wheels and the 4th was delivered after I’d paid around £200 customs import tax to release it (wheels ended up being around £1500).
I was fine with this as seller had discounted to allow for this.

 

[SparrowHawk]

In case anyone reads this in the future and wants another data point on it, I made a purchase with Autodoc for £140 including VAT (free postage). I was not charged VAT again on it at the point of delivery, I assume because it was less than £135 once VAT was removed. Well done Parcel Force for applying the rules correctly. Not so well done for the European companies not removing the VAT for orders over £135+VAT...although I appreciate it must be a real headache for them.