OT: Customs duty, a cautionary tale

But you wouldn't have paid VAT on the original purchase!

There been enough publicity over import charges over the last 4 months. I'm surprised you hadn't anticipated this. VAT alone would be £140 on a £700 item.

He might or might not have - not all sellers are clued-up to importing/exporting to the UK.

Simple answer is the 'B'-word...

VAT perhaps but not duty...

One of the consequences of Brexit.

Hopefully, your Czech seller charged you an ex-VAT price, as they are exporting the item? You clearly now need to pay VAT on import.

Prior to Brexit, I think, the system was that you paid the price in Czech Republic including their VAT, and you didn't need to pay the VAT when you imported the item here?

If he'd paid VAT at the .cz end instead of the .uk end it would probably have been 21% instead of 20% (unless it's one of a range of reduced rate products)

The consequence is you pay UK VAT and not Czech VAT.

The VAT now goes the UK Treasury.

AFAICR that is how it was, despite variable VAT rates between EU nations (there were no fuel stations in Luxembourg last time I drove through it

- everyone drove into Belgium, to fill up)

OTOH importing from the USA netted you import duty, handling charge and VAT on the ruddy lot.

That's not of great comfort to the OP, faced with an unexpected bill for £143. Anyway, hopefully he voted for Brexit, so at least he voted for this fiasco. ;)

Most of that will be VAT, I suggest.

There's probably no duty to be charged from the Czech Republic (due to agreements). VAT will be chargeable on the purchase price plus the shipping.

Had he bought from (say) the USA, a £700 purchase would probably have been free of state tax, but subject to UK import duty of about 2% on the price and on the shipping charges. The 102% would then have been increased by 20% for VAT.

So a £700 purchase could have been (assuming £50 for shipping):

(£700 + £50) = £750.

VAT on £765 @ 20% = £153.

Total price at the door: £918 PLUS the charge made by the courier for the collection of the taxes.

Standard stuff (subject to the correct figure for import duty). It's been like that for a long time.

In addition, like the OP, you also get a bill for customs duty, which was not something you needed to pay wile we were part of the Customs Union.

Who now gets none of the VAT on sales to the EU.

For anyone near the Belgium / Luxembourg border, it's precisely the other way round. Luxembourg has the cheapest fuel in western Europe. They do it deliberately in order to, among other things, take advantage of Belgian demand (as well as demand from north-south travellers on the E411.

If VAT was paid in the country of origin, none was due in the country of destination. However, the rate applied did not have to be that of the country of origin. The rate in the country of destination could be charged instead. It still counted as a VAT paid sale in either case. That could make it attractive for people to buy from a country with a lower VAT rate for the goods they wanted.

GB a écrit :

'Conseqences'? Instead of paying VAT to the Czech government, he will instead be paying it to the UK Governemnt. The Chinese, as usual, are ahead of the game, they charge the VAT on ordering, which they are then supposed to send to the UK Goverment???

JNugent a écrit :

They usually claim £10 to £15 extra, for handling the collection of VAT. Pay at source and that extra is avoided. £10 extra on a small cheap item, is a lot.

brexit or none, the price difference is probably £7 less VAT and £10 more handling charge. An extra £3 on an £840 item is neither here nor there.

Only for "low value" orders, if it was over £135 it'd be charged the same way that the czech seller did.