Has anyone in the UK made a purchase from the EU for more than £135?

redzer007

What I find truly staggering is the appartant lack of awareness of the general UK public as to the impacts on small things like buying goods from Europe and the amount of time that UK citizens can spend in the EU etc. I think for most Europeans the impact was obvious and concerning. I accept that Ireland is a special case being so closely tied economically and culturely to the UK, but general awareness across the EU was pretty high I feel.

Hopefully things will settle down and some practical agreements will come into place in the near term.

In the interim all my € are staying in € (until l find that thing I absolutlely have to have in the UK 😀 )

Dries

I find this thread very informative (as an EU buyer), so let's not get any more political before this thread goes the same way as the previous one.

redzer007

What I find truly staggering is the appartant lack of awareness of the general UK public as to the impacts on small things like buying goods from Europe and the amount of time that UK citizens can spend in the EU etc.

khanmu

Let's take a common example - a direct sale from a commercial dealer in say The Netherlands, to a UK customer, i.e. you see a watch on their website and call them up to buy it:

- EU sellers must charge UK VAT on their sales to UK customers at the point of sale
- They will have on-going VAT compliance obligations
- There is no minimum VAT registration threshold for EY sellers, registration for UK VAT is now mandatory

So if you are the Dutch dealer, why would you bother "distance" selling to a UK customer ? And indeed, a number of EU businesses have already said they have stopped selling to the UK. The private seller has an advantage as they won't have to go through all the above, but as per my earlier post, you will have to pay Vat and possibly customs, once the goods arrive into the UK

khanmu

So if you are the Dutch dealer, why would you bother "distance" selling to a UK customer ? And indeed, a number of EU businesses have already said they have stopped selling to the UK

TimeODanaos

Thanks @Mark020 and @khanmu - the impact for B2B and B2P transactions looks bad, short term at least. I didn't know even the smallest businesses had to be signed up. Also, I guess everyone understands taxes being added to the bill at POS, but a system where couriers arrive asking for slightly random and unannounced additional sums can't be good.

My own experience so far was receiving a c.2k watch in England in a private transaction from Belgium. No taxes or charges. Unfortunately, I can't contribute helpful knowledge to the discussion, because I bought in December and received in January. It was a worry at the time, but seems OK now. Problem is, I'm unable to tell whether that was i) Brexit cut-off working as prescribed ii) Purely P2P transaction, correctly treated iii) So much New Year confusion I got away with something by accident.* So, I'm still very interested in hearing any live experiences!

*I suspect it might have been this one. There's a great BBC news podcast whose intro includes.a remark made by an East Ender character, "No-one's got a *** clue, what Brexit is!" Ive got no politics here, but I think they got that one right. 😉

TimeODanaos

I'm not so sure - it will be interesting to see. Put together everyone who simply must have that German camera, that Italian jacket, that Dutch bike accessory, and folks like that lady in Mark020's BBC report, and that may become more than 5%. (Although not more than 50% 😗 sorry.)

fibonacci

Do those EU businesses not sell to any countries outside of the EU then? Or is there something particular about UK rules that makes it more onerous?

ChrisN

I'm not sure either but it seems a bit odd to buy those things direct as an individual. If you want a Zegna jacket, you don't buy them directly from Italy, you go to your local supplier such as Robert Olds in Bournemouth, UK. Of course, a very large proportion of the UK population sadly don't have the disposable income for such things.

The lady in the BBC report seems naive, to say the least. I wonder which brand doesn't have a UK outlet she could have bought from? I dislike the way she just returned them even though it was her mistake so, the company ends up paying postage..

Spacefruit

What no one ever seems to think or remember is that any difficulties in goods entering the UK are directly under the UK control, and as such could be made as easy or hard as the UK authorities decreed.

the UK could, for example, follow the Hong Kong model and become a free port - removing duties and vat on all imports. (Would have to remove vat altogether). Some argue this would give a massive boost to our economy as the volume of trade would rise and make up for lost VAT - which is a tax universally agreed disproportionately affects the poor.

of course there would be consequences and our neighbours would definitely not want a Freeport on their doorstep, amd I doubt government would surrender the control that VAT compliance gives them over every person in the UK.

but if you think about the consequences to the second hand watch trade - it would leap in size, along with all the ancillary businesses like watchmakers strap makers, even shops. Imagine the effect across all tradable goods without the friction of vat and duty - and those awful vat returns.

Spacefruit

But I accept your point there are many affects, most of which I will not have thought through.

that’s why I’m not in charge😀