Tariff's?

[Model Builder 4]

Thought it worth a mention that the other day I put something in my basket on Aliexpress that was listed as £75 but when I went to checkout the price had jumped up to just over £85, when I looked closer it stated that the extra cost was tax? I've bought loads of bits from there before and have never seen this

Cheers,Lee.

[Tiger6]

@ Rob (& Lee)
You now get charged UK VAT (and import duty if the value is over the minimum threshold of £135) just like you would if you were importing from anywhere else in the world. The only new bit is the UK Govt forcing international sellers to collect the VAT for them rather than HMRC having to do this at the border.
Previously you would have paid the VAT of the EU country you were buying from, but that arrangement was is only applicable for countries within the EU. The import duty was not added on for the same reason.

The rules for European countries importing from outside the EU have not changed.

[Model Builder 4]

Thanks for the info Tiger6, so does that mean that if I paid the extra on Aliexpress I would not get slapped with possibly an extra charge for buying from China when it arrives here? It has been a bit hit and miss in the past with some things arriving with no extra charge and other times having to pay extra plus an handling fee from the Royal mail

Cheers,Lee.

[Tiger6]

In theory you should be able to ask AliExpress for a refund if the VAT if it gets applied at the border, but you might struggle in reality... I'm not sure how HMRC knows the difference between duty paid and not when they get their mits on your package - you can bet that as soon as they start putting some kind of marking on the shipping label, some enterprising individuals are going to figure out the secret code and start skipping the part where they collect the VAT and go back to undercutting everyone else.

[abramsky]

You will not pay VAT twice, as long as the sender / seller put the information on the bill of lading - i.e. British EORI code: GB 365 6085 76 informing customs in the UK that the tax has been paid. Otherwise, VAT may be charged again. Read page 16-17 carefully from the link I provided earlier. Ebay charges 20% VAT regardless of the actual VAT rate on all products with a value below £ 135. If the value of the product exceeds 135 pounds, Ebay will still charge 20% VAT but you can try to recover overpaid VAT using the BOR286 form -
https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... ost-bor286
You will almost certainly fail to recover VAT from Ebay or Allieexpress. Likewise, the request for a VAT refund from the seller is groundless - because the tax collected by eBay / PayPal does not go to the seller but to the account of the UK tax office.

[abramsky]

And about EU countries:
"From July 1 2021, purchases on AliExpress, Wish, Amazon and eBay will be subject to VAT. Currently, the EU tax office does not receive tax on goods that EU consumers order on AliExpress, Wish, Amazon and eBay. The reason is this. that in the vast majority of EU countries, the import of goods in parcels up to EUR 22 is exempt from VAT (in Poland this exemption is no longer applicable). Dishonest sellers abuse this exemption and do not pay tax also on more expensive parcels, lowering their value. "