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Importing pins from the EU. Does VAT & Duty apply

aaronhicksuk said:
Yep totally agree, same thing applies to the Guardian as a newspaper
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Indeed. There was a similar article on the Gunard that included a complaint from someone who had ordered something from a company called OnePiece or something. She was outraged at the fact that she was being asked to pay VAT and customs, as the website explicitly said that there would be no additional charge for VAT and customs. What does it actually say?

NO EXTRA CUSTOMS OR VAT ADDED. SHIPPED FROM INSIDE THE EU.

Admittedly, it's in very fine print, but people - keep up!
 
johnwhitfield said:
So what’s the situation with buying a machine from Northern Ireland? I can’t get my head around what’s happening over there.
can someone in Belfast import a machine from Eire with no problem?
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I could drive down to Southern Ireland and buy a pin, stick in the back of a people carrier and drive back over the ‘border’ without anyone tackling me. If I pay a courier or haulage company to do this for me it will be a totally different story.

with England it should be a simple case of sailing over with my people carrier and buying a machine and sailing back with it, same if I pay a courier to do it for me. This doesn’t seem to be the way it is at the moment but that’s because not everyone knows the process so most assume the worst and err on the side of caution. Basically Northern Ireland is part of the U.K. so should be the same as driving from England into Scotland or Wales but because we have europeans attached to us now everyone is seemi automatically assuming stuff heading to N.I is on its way to S.I.

I have also just sold a pin to a guy in England but it’s currently down south so unless I go down and lift it and bring it back up here to put it on a pallet to send over to him it will incur a £50 tariff on top of the normal fee before the haulage company even start the process of exporting it. if I bring it up here it should be straight forward a to b transaction (not sure it would be but it ’should’ be.

if anyone wants to send me over a pin I’ll let you know what I get charged in tax and duties 😎 best send something newish 😃
 
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BigIan said:
I could drive down to Southern Ireland and buy a pin, stick in the back of a people carrier and drive back over the ‘border’ without anyone tackling me. If I pay a courier or haulage company to do this for me it will be a totally different story.

with England it should be a simple case of sailing over with my people carrier and buying a machine and sailing back with it, same if I pay a courier to do it for me. This doesn’t seem to be the way it is at the moment but that’s because not everyone knows the process so most assume the worst and err on the side of caution. Basically Northern Ireland is part of the U.K. so should be the same as driving from England into Scotland or Wales but because we have europeans attached to us now everyone is seemi automatically assuming stuff heading to N.I is on its way to S.I.

I have also just sold a pin to a guy in England but it’s currently down south so unless I go down and lift it and bring it back up here to put it on a pallet to send over to him it will incur a £50 tariff on top of the normal fee before the haulage company even start the process of exporting it. if I bring it up here it should be straight forward a to b transaction (not sure it would be but it ’should’ be.

if anyone wants to send me over a pin I’ll let you know what I get charged in tax and duties 😎 best send something newish 😃
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I'd certainly be interested in how it goes.
 
I'd still bang it in the back of the van and take a gamble, if you get a tug they will want the vat from you they won't take the pin
You may save 20% but if not then you haven't lost anything because if you declare it its still 20%,
 
Travel to NI loads of time on Stenaline from Cairnryan in a van and back from Belfast T4.
When they make you open the van they are generally looking for anything criminal / security breach related or foot n mouth type produce (more so back in the day).
Checking purpose of you’re trip etc.....
 
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The main route from Belfast to Dublin is now a motorway (eu grants, Celtic tiger etc)so you cross the border at 70mph, you only notice you have crossed because you are suddenly doing 110 kmph 🤣.
Not sure how they will enforce a border especially as they ‘promised’ there would be no customs etc between irish countries. They also ‘promised’ there would be no border in the Irish Sea between Britain and Northern Ireland, two countries in the U.K.
 
Jesus. If we’re not careful we’ll be onto the logistics of someone dying in Dublin being imported to Belfast for a cremation and the the ashes then exported to mainland U.K. 😉.
 
If you're buying *anything* from the EU, then there's another Brexit bonus to look forward to

https://www.ft.com/content/39f553a0-00c5-48ad-a8ee-0b9fd75554b0?shareType=nongift

"Mastercard to increase fees for UK purchases from EU
Departure from single market spells end for Brussels-mandated cap on transaction levies"

Mastercard will increase fees more than fivefold when a British shopper uses a debit or credit card to buy from an EU-based company, sparking alarm among companies that rely on online payments and concern among MPs over higher consumer prices.

Mastercard and Visa levy an “interchange” fee on behalf of banks for every debit or credit card payment that uses their networks. The EU introduced a cap in 2015 after concerns the hidden fees were leading to hundreds of millions of euros in costs for companies and higher prices for consumers.

But Mastercard has told merchants that the cap no longer applies to some transactions post-Brexit, because payments between the UK and European Economic Area are now deemed “inter-regional”.

From October 15, Mastercard will charge 1.5 per cent of the transaction value for every online credit card payment from the UK to the EU, up from 0.3 per cent at the moment. For debit card payments, the fee will jump from 0.2 per cent to 1.15 per cent. The increase will benefit British banks and other card issuers, rather than Mastercard itself.

Consumers will face higher costs if companies choose to pass on the fee, a further burden on purchasing products from EU-based companies. Extensive red tape has been imposed on buying and selling products between the UK and EU after Brexit, alongside customs and VAT charges.

This smacks of opportunism and I would urge the regulators to step in as a matter of urgency

Kevin Hollinrake, chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Fair Business Banking
Domestic purchases from Amazon UK, for example, normally go through a Luxembourg-based company. One person familiar with its plans said the ecommerce giant could shift where the UK store is located under card network rules to avoid the fee increase on its merchants.

“Some people might put this change down to Brexit, but it is actually just greed. It is well within the power of the card schemes to make merchants’ lives easy and keep things operating as they were pre-2021,” said Joel Gladwin, head of policy at the Coalition for a Digital Economy, which represents British start-ups.

“Not only does this hurt the already squeezed bottom lines of ecommerce start-ups and subscription businesses, it comes at a time when a huge number of small businesses have shifted to online models to survive.”

The move also affects services provided by companies with EU-based operations that consumers may not realise are international transactions.

Callum Godwin, chief economist at CMSPI, the global payments consultancy, said industries such as airlines, hotels, car rentals and travel groups would be hit by the move — “anywhere the consumer is in the UK and the merchant is in the EU”. He said that was particularly bad for these industries, which had been hit by Covid-19 lockdowns and could not afford further losses.

Mastercard processes the majority of credit card transactions in the UK, and a growing proportion of debit card payments.

Visa, which leads in the debit card market, has not announced any changes to its fees, but has not ruled it out. A spokesperson said “should any change to interchange be appropriate, Visa would aim to provide our clients with advance notice to help them plan ahead”.

Mastercard said the changes were designed to bring interchange rates in line with levels it had agreed with the European Commission for transactions from all non-EU areas in 2019.

One EU-based start-up that offers services to the UK said: “It seems very opportunistic. In the EU, they are very tightly regulated. But the UK has no similar legislation.”

The Treasury declined to comment.

Kevin Hollinrake, chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Fair Business Banking, said the move was “alarming”.

He added: “This smacks of opportunism and I would urge the regulators to step in as a matter of urgency to ensure that financial institutions do not use Brexit as an opportunity to hike up costs that consumers will ultimately bear.”

After the new rules were brought in 2015, the commission found that merchants saved about €1.2bn, with estimated overall annual consumer cost savings of between €864m and €1.9bn.

MPs warned in 2019 that higher interchange fees could be passed on to UK businesses and consumers.

Long story short, Mastercard (both credit and debit cards) are increasing their transaction charge. I expect in reality this will put prices up across the board, regardless of which card is used, as the retailer has to pay the fees and it would be challenging to offer different prices dependent on the card you're planning to use.
 
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oh I forgot the the EU pinball trader racket massif also use MasterCard!
 
My latest order from EU for pinball parts got hit with £69 charge VAT + £11.50 UPS admin fee. VAT was already paid on the item in the EU, so I guess they have f**** up. No help on their website about how to dispute this or complain ffs.
Prev 2 orders from same supplier came through ok.
 
Likewise my wife’s medical shipments to French hospitals have turned up with bills for the hospitals to pay, despite my wife’s company completing the paperwork correctly and paying all duties and fees due.

Rather more worryingly, many of their oxygen products have raw materials from China and may not be now legal to sell in the EU due to Country of Origin regs, despite final manufacture being in the UK. They can’t get any firm guidance on this from HMRC.

Long story short, prices will go up both nationally and internationally and they may not be viable without the European operations, meaning the NHS will have to source their products from overseas rather than a Queen’s Award winning British company.
 
So interesting this week I have two packages shipped via Fedex, one pings me and asks for the VAT which I pay and its out for delivery. The other stuck in the same state hasn't sent me a text to pay it, call customer services they say its clearance issue and put me through to the duty department that seems to be manned by a single person. First one isn't pinball, second one is a nine ball replacement playfield from Mirko.


Neil.
 
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