READ SUMMARY IN POST 986 - Amazon.uk Post-Brexit

harmless

Gregor Samsa wrote: »

Yeah, but if you were going to be charged Customs Duty, Amazon will be the ones collecting it, so you'll know about it before you finalise your order. So far I've yet to come across any product that charges it.

Yes I don't expect any issues with Amazon but it's probably best to not order elsewhere in the UK until it is clarified.

ED E

Sleeper12 wrote: »

Amazon UK will now charge you the Irish vat at checkout

Amazon UK have ALWAYS charged Irish VAT. They've been over threshold since they only sold books.

harmless

listermint wrote: »

They won't be allowed to bring anything in. The delivery company needs all the paperwork to be revenue compliant.

It's alot of work. People really really really take the EU for granted. It's all been very bloody easy for decades

Yes but revenue have made it clear that under some circumstances when buying from the UK you may be charged duty on goods.

I'm just trying to figure out what that situation would look like.

Gregor Samsa

harmless wrote: »

Yes I don't expect any issues with Amazon but it's probably best to not order elsewhere in the UK until it is clarified.

For sure, there's going to be a lot of UK stores that won't have a clue what to do, and will do it all wrong. I'd be wary ordering from other UK vendors too, especially smaller ones.

It's going to take a while for it all to bed in. Amazon being Amazon (either because they're a massively efficent machine or in league with the Devil) are of course on top of it from the get-go.

whiterebel

harmless wrote: »

Yes but revenue have made it clear that under some circumstances when buying from the UK you may be charged duty on goods.

I'm just trying to figure out what that situation would look like.

Anything, if you can’t prove origin.So a British made Nissan versus a Japanese one

harmless

whiterebel wrote: »

Anything, if you can’t prove origin.So a British made Nissan versus a Japanese one

So potentially anything that you can't prove originated from the EU or UK even if it has shipped from the UK?

CelticRambler

listermint wrote: »

It's not up to revenue to list them and they won't.

It's up the seller to ensure the goods comply and have country of origin. Which will mean many sellers won't bother because it's paperwork and hard work and many don't have capacity to comply.

This is not strictly true. It is the importer who has to satisfy the authorities that the product complies with the rules of the Union. The importer should liaise with the seller to ensure that all the paperwork is in order, as in most of circumstances relevant to this thread, it's the seller who is exporting (i.e. arranging transport to the EU). A clued-up seller will make life easy for their customers by having things in order from the get-go; but if you're buying from some drop-shipper who's never bothered too much about the regulations around global trade, it's entirely possible they'll send you something that's prohibited, or without the right paperwork, or something that is subject to tariffs. As they are a non-EU supplier, your consumer rights are nil if they mess up. You're the importer: it's your responsibility to be compliant.

Trevord

harmless wrote: »

Is that a handling fee or customs duty charge by revenue?
There must be somewhere on the revenue site that lists the small number of goods that customs duty will be charged on.
I don't understand why they would be so vague on all this.

Import tariffs (import taxes) do not apply - the agreement means there will be no tariffs for EU/UK trade. But there are other costs of moving products through customs that did not exist when the UK was part of the EU Customs Union. These are mainly paperwork and regulatory costs that now become an issue as the UK is outside the customs union.

Also there is the question of VAT (EU member state Vat specifically). Amazon has charged Irish VAT for years, so the VAT part should not be an issue with sales by Amazon.

But other UK sellers have just charged UK VAT for sales to Ireland and that was fine when the UK was part of the EU. (You can't be charged VAT twice for sales of goods between two EU Member States.)

Now that the UK is outside the EU, a UK seller could charge you UK VAT and customs might then require that you pay Irish VAT in addition to this. Ideally you'd want a UK seller to collect Irish VAT or no VAT at all from you in order to avoid risk of having to pay VAT twice.

Small value items (eg from China) regularly slip though without attracting the attention of customs, even when they might exceed the value where customs are supposed to take an interest.

Given the very large amount of online purchases that enter Ireland from the UK, it will be interesting to see how all of this works (or doesn't work).

harmless

Trevord wrote: »

Import tariffs (import taxes) do not apply - the agreement means there will be no tariffs for EU/UK trade. But there are other costs of moving products through customs that did not exist when the UK was part of the EU Customs Union. These are mainly paperwork and regulatory costs that now become an issue as the UK is outside the customs union.

So this kind of extra costs are considered customs duty by Irish revenue?
I had figured the extra cost from paperwork would just be added to the price of the item.

CelticRambler

harmless wrote: »

So potentially anything that you can't prove originated from the EU or UK even if it has shipped from the UK?

Oh, it's far more complicated than that! Faisal Islam had a thing on twitter about it a few days ago. Dolls are subject to tariffs if their foreign-made eyes represent more than a certain value of the materials in the head; an office desk may or may not be subject to tariffs depending on where the legs and the top came from before they were put together; your frozen American-style pizza (has to be frozen, "fresh" is banned) will be subject to tariffs if the American cheddar on it was only quickly grated in the processing plant ...

harmless

CelticRambler wrote: »

Oh, it's far more complicated than that! Faisal Islam had a thing on twitter about it a few days ago. Dolls are subject to tariffs if their foreign-made eyes represent more than a certain value of the materials in the head; an office desk may or may not be subject to tariffs depending on where the legs and the top came from before they were put together; your frozen American-style pizza (has to be frozen, "fresh" is banned) will be subject to tariffs if the American cheddar on it was only quickly grated in the processing plant ...

Have Amazon already made these calculations on the items they sell or could we be charged customs duty when ordering direct from Amazon.co.uk?

If Amazon have to do this for their whole inventory it will be a very long time before it's in order.

nephster

I would imagine that for most UK online businesses that had a robust international market beforehand, you will actually be OK to order fairly shortly, as they will just apply the same rules as they would have done shipping to say Canada or Japan.

For example, a business I buy specialist items from lists ex-VAT on their site and until yesterday would only apply VAT to EU orders. I suspect they will now just export everywhere ex-VAT (as Boris implied as a "benefit" of Brexit!!) and hence I will be hit with paying Irish VAT myself but with An Post's collection fee. Quite what that fee will be is I think still unclear, possibly the old €10, possibly this new €3.50 that is being mentioned on the AddressPal site.

I won't be ordering until that happens, though; I have no wish to pay UK and Irish VAT, plus the collection fee, plus the extra postage!

harmless

nephster wrote: »

I would imagine that for most UK online businesses that had a robust international market beforehand, you will actually be OK to order fairly shortly, as they will just apply the same rules as they would have done shipping to say Canada or Japan.

For example, a business I buy specialist items from lists ex-VAT on their site and until yesterday would only apply VAT to EU orders. I suspect they will now just export everywhere ex-VAT (as Boris implied as a "benefit" of Brexit!!) and hence I will be hit with paying Irish VAT myself but with An Post's collection fee. Quite what that fee will be is I think still unclear, possibly the old €10, possibly this new €3.50 that is being mentioned on the AddressPal site.

Yes VAT is actually relatively straight forward.
It's revenues warning about possible customs duty from buying online from the UK that will be the complicated issue.

CelticRambler

harmless wrote: »

Have Amazon already made these calculations on the items they sell

I suspect that this is at least partially responsible for the disappearance of some of the many products that are no longer deliverable to Ireland.

harmless wrote: »

or could we be charged customs duty when ordering direct from Amazon.co.uk

Could we - in theory, yes; will we - probably not, because Amazon-Amazon know what they're doing. But if you order from independent (=marketplace) retailers, there's more of a risk.

Remember: Amazon.co.uk and all merchants based in the UK can continue to sell whatever they sold before to customers in the UK.

As an EU customer, you're the one choosing to buy from a non-EU platform when you have plenty of EU (and other non-EU) options available. Britain is a third country, and that means that as of today there is some stuff they sell that you can bring into the EU and some stuff that you can't.

Gregor Samsa

harmless wrote: »

Have Amazon already made these calculations on the items they sell or could we be charged customs duty when ordering direct from Amazon.co.uk?

If Amazon have to do this for their whole inventory it will be a very long time before it's in order.

All UK exports have to have form CN22 on them (or CN23 for heavier and/or more expensive items). Both CN22 and CN23 require the exporter to fill in the HS number and Country of Origin of the products in the shipment. It's these that will determine potential Customs Duty. Amazon will already have these details for most things in their inventory, and printing the labels will be automated. And if they don't, then they won't ship the items.

What Britain is facing now in shipping to the EU is the same as they always had to do in shipping to the US, Canada or Australia or wherever. Any stores versed in exporting (outside the EU) up until now will be pretty much set up for it. It's the ones that were used to just throwing a package in the post to Ireland that will have trouble with the paperwork.

Jim_Hodge

Items direct from Amazon seem to be fine but third party sales are affected for many understandable reasons.

RurtBeynolds

This is hardly unexpected.

Cilar

I highly doubt that those electrical items would not be available anywhere else in the EU outside of the UK. They're probably manufactured in China anyways! A plug adapter costs a few euros.

Sheep Shagger

Another large retailer selling into Ireland from the UK has a much clearer update.

https://www.littlewoodsireland.ie/web/en/free-delivery-returns.page

Trevord

harmless wrote: »

So this kind of extra costs are considered customs duty by Irish revenue?
I had figured the extra cost from paperwork would just be added to the price of the item.

There are costs involving in clearing customs and establishing whether products are what they claim to be and where those products originated. These are called non tariff barriers (NTBs).

These costs have always been there for products arriving from outside of the EU. Now that the UK is outside the EU, goods from the UK fall into that category.

Sleeper12

ED E wrote:

Amazon UK have ALWAYS charged Irish VAT. They've been over threshold since they only sold books.

I have a business account so they never charged me but that wasn't really what I meant. Lots of posters on different threads think that the duty deposit is an extra charge compared to per Brexit. I'm trying to explain that the vast majority of goods from Amazon UK will work out the same price (give or take a few pennies) as when UK were in the eu. Buying direct from Sold by amazon or fulfilled by amazon ensures that you get no surprises from delivery companies or customs. Even the two weeks delivery time will shorten to one or two days within a few weeks.

For the most part it's business as usual

AuldDaysul

Placed two under €22 VAT free orders today on amazon. Nice to see the price go down in the basket! Hopefully this is the new normal.

MBSnr

TheDriver wrote: »

Thanks harmless, that's what I am referring to.
I buy a €20 bag, no VAT.
I buy a €20 hat, no VAT.
If i tried to buy them together, it adds 21% VAT so i order separately.
Amazon lump them in the same package (as they used to do anyways).
Do i have 2 customs declarations on the front? Or just one? and it will now say I've imported €40 worth of stuff so now I owe VAT.

A poster in another thread in Online Buying mentioned that it is possible to purchase multiple under 22 Euro items without VAT in one order, if they are fulfilled from different warehouses or the delivery dates differ. I didn't find an example but I have in the past had the order split with items arriving separately from different warehouse centres.

We'll just have to wait and see how they cope with your example. Perhaps they will no longer lump them together if there is no VAT. We can only hope!

Zardoz

AuldDaysul wrote: »

Placed two under €22 VAT free orders today on amazon. Nice to see the price go down in the basket! Hopefully this is the new normal.

Whilst technically its legit , I can't see Revenue sitting by and allowing this.

antimatterx

Zardoz wrote: »

Whilst technically its legit , I can't see Revenue sitting by and allowing this.

I mean, there's nothing they can do about it. It is completely legal.

davetherave

harmless wrote: »

I've been trying to find the few exceptions where customs duty would be owed but have drawn a blank so far.

Do you have any examples?

harmless wrote: »

Is that a handling fee or customs duty charge by revenue?
There must be somewhere on the revenue site that lists the small number of goods that customs duty will be charged on.
I don't understand why they would be so vague on all this.

harmless wrote: »

Yes I've tried this but am still unsure in what exact situations customs duty is due.
I know it will be a limited to a small number of goods types but I can't find them listed on the revenue site.



Exactly, if revenue are warning about it then it can happen in some situations.

harmless wrote: »

Yes but revenue have made it clear that under some circumstances when buying from the UK you may be charged duty on goods.

I'm just trying to figure out what that situation would look like.

Read the bottom of the page from the screenshot that you posted.

Revenue says there are

https://www.revenue.ie/en/customs-tr...als/index.aspx

Published: 21 July 2020

A lot has changed since July, most prominently a no-quota no-tariff trade agreement between the EU and the UK.


There are over 24,600 taric codes that exist in the EU Database showing rules and rates for importing goods into the EU. You can look through all of them here if you really want to find something that will incur a rate from the uk. It is very comprehensive, there are listings for six different shapes for ball or roller bearings, and some of those can be broken down into sub groups again for different sizes or operating temperatures.

They are 10 digits, each two digit paring is a subclass of the previous.

Take the last DHL invoice I got, the company out in Taiwan has entered the HS/Taric code as 5807109000 which equates to
SECTION XI TEXTILES AND TEXTILE ARTICLES
CHAPTER 58 SPECIAL WOVEN FABRICS; TUFTED TEXTILE FABRICS; LACE; TAPESTRIES; TRIMMINGS; EMBROIDERY
5807 - Labels, badges and similar articles of textile materials, in the piece, in strips or cut to shape or size, not embroidered : (TN701)
5807 10 - Woven :
5807 10 90 - Other

It was hundreds of woven (not embroidered) badges/patches, all of the same shape/design.

The duty rate on those from a Third Party Country is 6.20% which is what they listed on the DHL invoice. The duty rate from the United Kingdom is 0%.


Even strawberry jam isn't just JAM, STRAWBERRY. Once you work your way through Section IV - Prepared Foodstuffs --> Chapter 20 Preperations of Vegtables, Fruits, Nuts --> 20 07 Jams, Fruit Jellies, Marmalades, Fruit Purees, it is still broken down into the sugar content.

As others have mentioned to you, for 99.999% of what you will be buying it will not incur "Customs Duty". There could well be some obscure species of plant, or chemical, or something but if you are buying a suit jacket, or a new television, or a sofa, or just about anything general with an item value of over €150 it won't incur Customs Duty.

flintash

AuldDaysul wrote: »

Placed two under €22 VAT free orders today on amazon. Nice to see the price go down in the basket! Hopefully this is the new normal.

New normal... until 1st of July. 😀 Enjoy while you can 😉

ussjtrunks

What happens when the 22€ vat exemption is lifted will there be other changes at that stage or will it just be the exemption going away?

Sleeper12

Zardoz wrote:

Whilst technically its legit , I can't see Revenue sitting by and allowing this.

This is being done away with in a few months time. I think I read June this year

guil

TheDriver wrote: »

Thanks harmless, that's what I am referring to.
I buy a €20 bag, no VAT.
I buy a €20 hat, no VAT.
If i tried to buy them together, it adds 21% VAT so i order separately.
Amazon lump them in the same package (as they used to do anyways).
Do i have 2 customs declarations on the front? Or just one? and it will now say I've imported €40 worth of stuff so now I owe VAT.

Could you change the address slightly to force amazon to send 2 separate packages?