Bringing goods from the EU

[Rorschach]

There is no threshold.

There is a threshold for good outside the EU at the moment, so I don't see why there wouldn't be one for EU goods now.

 

[Jake]

The UK left the EU for cultural and political reasons, not economic. So anytime anyone says "won't it be cheaper?", the answer is probably no. At least, not in the short or even medium term.

Delete probably, add long.

 

[Jake]

That's why I said smaller items that would be below the threshold (either posted or carried).

It will be interesting to see how that is handled. They have historically let low value (under £25 or so?) imports from the US through without VAT, but they won't be able to do that facing our much closer home continent market, else Amazon and the like will spank the tax advantage over domestic sellers.

 

[Jake]

Is this the rules for bringing goods from OUTSIDE the EU

It will depend. If what you are buying is 100% made in the EU from EU supplied raw materials upwards, you will need to pay customs/VAT clearance charges but not duties/tariffs. If you are buying purely (say) Chinese manufactured goods from an EU reseller then duty as well as VAT will be payable as if they were bought direct from China. If what you are buying is say German manufactured using components or materials from outside the EU then you may or may not need to pay duties as well as VAT on entry, depending on how "EU" and how "non-EU" the thing(s) are. There are some pretty complicated rules to apply to determine whether goods qualify as EU-made (for duty free import) going by physical composition or value added.

 

[jcassidy]

Delete probably, add long.

Well I don't want to exclude the possibilty that BREXIT might turn good in the long term. We don't know the future!

 

[Noel]

It will depend. If what you are buying is 100% made in the EU from EU supplied raw materials upwards, you will need to pay customs/VAT clearance charges but not duties/tariffs. If you are buying purely (say) Chinese manufactured goods from an EU reseller then duty as well as VAT will be payable as if they were bought direct from China. If what you are buying is say German manufactured using components or materials from outside the EU then you may or may not need to pay duties as well as VAT on entry, depending on how "EU" and how "non-EU" the thing(s) are. There are some pretty complicated rules to apply to determine whether goods qualify as EU-made (for duty free import) going by physical composition or value added.

We are talking doll's eyes Jake............... : )

 

[sploo]

Here you go. All 1,246 pages of it.

EU-UK_Trade_and_Cooperation_Agreement_24.12.2020.pdf (order-order.com)

No, I'm not going to summarise it. We have a Civil Service for that job. Await their deliberations.

Ah. The fantastic document that contains references to such cutting edge technology as Netscape Communicator (discontinued for over 15 years), and also crypto algorithms that are outdated and now considered unsafe. Really gives me the warm fuzzy feeling that the rest of the document is probably at a similar level of quality.

As it did at the end of 1999 when the Y2K bug brought the world to an end.

I'm off out panic buying, to create shortages, thus proving that predictions of shortages caused by Brexit were correct.

Note: an awful lot of skilled people spent an awful lot of time working on an awful lot of IT systems in order to reduce Y2K related problems; but even then plenty of problems occurred (see The millennium bug was real – and 20 years later we face the same threats | Martyn Thomas). The pertinent quote in that article: "...but those of us who worked days, nights and weekends to meet the hard deadline of December 1999 are angered when ignorant people think that because we succeeded, the threat was not serious"

 

[JohnPW]

UK law regarding import duties and VAT is changing in 2021.

It's actually an EU law that the UK has decided to keep after 31 Dec 2020.

The exemptions for low cost goods are going to be scraped, the threshold being £19 and £37 for commercial products and gifts respectively IIRC.

https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/business/vat/modernising-vat-cross-border-ecommerce_en

the (non-EU) seller will charge and collect the VAT at the point of sale to EU customers and declare and pay that VAT globally to the Member State of identification in the OSS (One Stop Shop). These goods will then benefit from a VAT exemption upon importation, allowing a fast release at customs.

The introduction of the import scheme goes hand in hand with the abolition of the current VAT exemption for goods in small consignment of a value of up to EUR 22. This is also in line with the commitment to apply the destination principle for VAT.

Where the import OSS is not used, a second simplification mechanism will be available for imports. Import VAT will be collected from customers by the customs declarant (e.g. postal operator, courier firm, customs agents) which will pay it to the customs authorities via a monthly payment.

Who will benefit from this proposal?

Businesses will benefit from a substantial reduction in cross-border VAT compliance costs. This will facilitate greater cross-border trade.
EU Businesses will be able to compete on equal footing with non-EU businesses that are not charging VAT.
Member States will gain through an increase in VAT revenues of EUR 7 billion annually.

 

[jcassidy]

Note: an awful lot of skilled people spent an awful lot of time working on an awful lot of IT systems in order to reduce Y2K related problems; but even then plenty of problems occurred (see The millennium bug was real – and 20 years later we face the same threats | Martyn Thomas). The pertinent quote in that article: "...but those of us who worked days, nights and weekends to meet the hard deadline of December 1999 are angered when ignorant people think that because we succeeded, the threat was not serious"

Yes, I was one of them! About a year's worth of work, and I was the senior sysadmin on shift that night. let me tell you, we were all sh****g bricks.

Mind you, 2049 is going to be another interesting year as an awful lot of fixes where along the lines of "if year is less than 49, century is 20, otherwise century is 19"

 

[sploo]

Yes, I was one of them! About a year's worth of work, and I was the senior sysadmin on shift that night. let me tell you, we were all sh****g bricks.

Mind you, 2049 is going to be another interesting year as an awful lot of fixes where along the lines of "if year is less than 49, century is 20, otherwise century is 19"

IRC there was a claim that the Chinese government forced senior airline execs to be in the air as the date rolled over into 2000; in order to "focus minds" on ensuring their IT systems were fixed

At the moment I'm just "looking forward" to 2038; given the number of systems using 32 bit Unix epoch times

 

[Jake]

Ah. The fantastic document that contains references to such cutting edge technology as Netscape Communicator (discontinued for over 15 years), and also crypto algorithms that are outdated and now considered unsafe. Really gives me the warm fuzzy feeling that the rest of the document is probably at a similar level of quality.

To be fair that is just replicating existing EU language (a Council Directive from 2008 on DNA info sharing, which I assume but do not know itself picked up earlier language).

 

[Jake]

We are talking doll's eyes Jake............... : )

I have actually read the damn thing, but yes I did see that.

 

[sploo]

To be fair that is just replicating existing EU language (a Council Directive from 2008 on DNA info sharing, which I assume but do not know itself picked up earlier language).

Yea, I assumed it was just a copy and paste from an earlier document - though definitely in keeping with the slapstick comedy theme of the rest of the negotiations.

 

[Jake]

It's actually even more complicated on VAT too (which might be better at a consumer level, provided that EU suppliers can be bothered with the hassle). If the consignment is less than £135, the supplier has to charge UK VAT to the customer and pay it to HMRC. The (it's £15) Low Consignment Value Relief gets abolished. If the consignment is over £135 then VAT is charged to the recipient by HMRC (via the parcel handler etc).

So high volume low price sellers will just account for VAT to HMRC and charge it on sale, which the likes of Amazon etc will just swallow in their volume. High price sellers can just fill out some additional paperwork and let the recipient worry.

If I was say a German tool shop with items above and below the £135 I would be seriously questioning whether the hassle is worth it, or specifying a min order.

This all if I've understood from a quick skim correctly...

Changes to VAT treatment of overseas goods sold to customers from 1 January 2021 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

 

[Jake]

Yea, I assumed it was just a copy and paste from an earlier document - though definitely in keeping with the slapstick comedy theme of the rest of the negotiations.

I like the irony of discarding EU law but just adopting its content.

 

[Danieljw]

Lol.....

 

[Jacob]

I like the irony of discarding EU law but just adopting its content.

All is not lost. We will still have to try to negotiate about the content, without any voting rights but no need to waste time and money on all that MEP nonsense. If it proves difficult it will all be EU's fault, not ours.

 

[Rorschach]

I like the irony of discarding EU law but just adopting its content.

If you listen to some former MEP's you will find that a lot of EU law was written with a great deal (possibly a large majority) of UK input, so it's not so much that we are following laws written by the EU as much as we are following laws written largely by ourselves. Therefore it would make sense that, in the short term at least, we would continue to go down that path. The difference now of course is that we can choose to diverge in the future (if we want to).

 

[Jacob]

.....The difference now of course is that we can choose to diverge in the future (if we want to).

If the EU chooses to agree. They will be able to vote on it, we won't.

 

[Rorschach]

If the EU chooses to agree. They will be able to vote on it, we won't.

Eh? You misunderstood my point.