Please pay attention to VAT when shipping

Hey all, I’m not sure the best place to post this.

In January eBay started applying VAT charges to certain purchases. I don’t know why certain purchases are included in this whilst others aren’t, but I imagine it’s a gradual roll-out to all items.

On 3 occasions since January I’ve eagerly awaited a package from overseas only to be told it cannot be delivered until I pay VAT which I’ve already paid once. This is happening on purchases where the seller has printed their own label rather than going through eBay’s own label creation service.

Instead of specifying that the item cost is X and the VAT was Y, the sellers have stated that the item cost was both the cost and the VAT combined and that the VAT paid was 0. This means I’m forced to pay VAT a second time on both the item’s price plus the original VAT amount and then send a letter off to the lovely customs people to prove that I’ve already paid this to get a refund.

As an example, this was a recent purchase I made:

Unfortunately the seller noted down on the customs slip that the item cost was $145.75 - the $114.50 item cost plus the $31.25 VAT - whilst noting down that no VAT had been paid. This meant that I had to pay an additional $37.50 before the item could be delivered.

In the UK this also means I’ve had to fork out 3 £12 admin fees which do not get reimbursed, meaning I’m currently £36 down because of this. So far I’ve let the sellers off because this is very much a new system eBay have introduced, but as a seller you have a legal responsibility to accurately declare what a customer has paid when shipping overseas. Please pay attention to the VAT field and note that amount down on your customs slips when posting items out.

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I don’t think its a gradual roll-out, they’re applying it to any purchase under £135, after which its collected the old way.

Sucks that this has happened to you so many times already! Doesn’t seem fair that you just have to bite the bullet on the admin fees, hopefully they’ll sort this out soon, seems like things right on the edge of the £135 limit are at risk if the buyer includes VAT as part of the declared value, definitely puts me off of buying things close to the £135 limit.

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Automatic 25% VAT has been a default thing on eBay for about a year now for me when buying from Norway. Also seems to be the case for a lot of other European countries for some time now. So much for a free global market… Luckily, I have not encountered problems yet as sellers so far did write the VOEC number on the packages. I think you are unable to print an eBay shipping label without the VAT information. But I can see how one may risk paying a second VAT on top of the initial VAT which sucks. On a positive note, this newish system has made things more efficient and in my experience reduced shipping times as packages are not stuck in customs for prolonged periods.

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So, I do occasionally sell something on ebay, but from ebay.nl there is afaik no way to make labels via ebay. So I just list a a shipping price and go to the post office when I have to ship something. On the customs label there is no place to write that VAT has already been paid (should this just be put anywhere on the customs form?). I would like to do right but I have no idea how this should be done. Seems like easy fraud to just write down that VAT has already been paid when in has not been paid (in non ebay transactions).

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You should get a unique VOEC number for each transaction, I think. I have not sold anything myself, only received items so not entirely sure how it works. But I have received plain letters where the VOEC number was hand written on the envelope. So it does not have to be a printed label.

@thymeee
Well there are still many months left before 1st of July so fingers crossed each postal service introduces new labels made purely for this change. My experiences are similar like yours when shipping international parcels from Finland, there’s an option to fill out address details & pay charges upfront online but I still prefer doing everything at post office.

seems we need to just buy local or face the consequences of buying abroad. It really does suck! I am expecting A huge bill from fed ex in the next few days for a parcel from Japan :sob: RIP

why would you pay VAT twice, just contact the customs and explain the situation

Have you ever tried dealing with Uk HMRC? X’D If you don’t pay you don’t get and the item is returned, destroyed or auctioned off. You have to pay then dispute, which is a real ball ache and can take ages. It isn’t as simple as contact and get a refund, that is what is annoying.

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Just got a voicemail from Fed-ex lmao! we have your parcel, give us hundreds of pounds to get it …ugh

Check the number, if it’s a mobile number the it’s a scam most likely.

I called them back and paid XD 0345 607 0809

@pichufan the problem is that you can not automatically create labels on ebay for the UK since brexit, it just says " service temporarily unavailable - label has to be created directly on post office site"

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Is it worth messaging sellers when buying from overseas to request they write down the VAT on the customs slip at least for the time being until things are running a bit more smoothly?

Might be worth letting eBay know about that? This VAT is something which affects all EU member states as well, it’s not related to UK leaving the EU as far as I’m aware.

eBay knows about it, they just don´t do anything about it. It certainly doesn´t affect Germany buying from other european countries, I don´t have to pay any VAT. It gets charged when buying from outside the EU (US, Asia etc) so I´m pretty sure it has something to do with the UK leaving the EU.