HMRC (UK tax)blocking eBay purchases.

Thanks. It seems odd how fast the channel has grown.

Big Clive

Bit late to the party on this one, but finally saw the radio remote switch video where you mentioned random items not turning up. I've experienced exactly the same thing lately, though my percentage is more like 25% not arriving. That's normally down about 5%.

Dan Craggs

In Croatia we have customs that have a duty of 10% + 25% VAT on everything over 22€ which includes shipping, so basically everything is taxed / levied by the customs. That is for the goods coming in from outside of EU area. But the real problem is that the postal service is getting worse and worse, to the point of some packages not even getting through, especially if outside of EU.

Jasmin Redzepagic

It might be worth trying to send a message via their help section. At the top right it has a "send a note" option. <a href="https://patreon.zendesk.com/hc/en-us" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://patreon.zendesk.com/hc/en-us</a>

Big Clive

Actually not just you. For the last year I have almost given up on buying items on ebay. Normally items I purchased before on ebay take about a month to arrive. For quite a while there it was taking 2 + months for my items to arrive that I have very much given up almost all out of country purchases including US. If I order online I go to amazon Canada as I know that will take less than a week to arrive and the tracking will work. Any packages that include tracking from other countries, as soon as it hits the border I lose all tracking. Plus I hate ordering from the US right now due to the president threatening to slap import taxes on Canadian exports and of course it will be tit for tat.

Here in Ireland (and I'm sure other EU countries), this is already the case, even for online services. VAT here is 23%, so if a plumber charges €100 for labour, there's an additional €23 tax on top. The same with Patreon pledges - Each $1 pledge I pay costs me $1.23.

Seán Byrne

How do you get to a human for support on Patreon? I have an error in my address and the pledge fails and I cannot fix the address. The links for doing so in the FAQ do not appear on my screen, possibly due to the failure. If I cannot get some human help, I will close this account and find some other way to get my monthly pledge to BC.

Here in AU we just had a tax come into place for any imports under $1k in a bid to help protect brick and mortar businesses keep in business... when all it does is give the big end of town more money. Stupid government...

Yeah, it's kinda a mess here. You have to know what the tax rate is for your particular county to figure out total cost. Here in OK. we range between 7% and 10%. Christ, we have legislators who WANT to tax service labor! I.e. plumbers, HVAC, &amp; electricians!

Looking at the individual tax situations in the united states, it is confusing. For instance in the UK the price you see on the shelf is the price you pay at the checkout - VAT is included (if applicable). Unless you're shopping at a trade outlet/company who may display prices ex VAT.

Marmite

Here in the States we are beginning to see more and more states collect sales tax on Amazon, EBay, Wish etc. It's added to the total cost and is suppose to be sent by the seller to the buyers state franchise tax board. What I've recently seen is a move by local city and township officials to add a county tax. The counties are getting pushback from Amazon. That is because Amazon just broke ground on a 600,000 sq ft fulfillment center in Oklahoma City. We don't have a Fed tax yet, but I see one coming. BTW, congrats Clive on 400K subscribers!

Congratulations BC, for having over 400,000 subscribers.

Wha... what? That seems like the "Use Tax" here.

Martel DuVigneaud

Oh crap! Does a VPN work? Is it the same through ebay.com (not .co.uk)?

PeetieGonzalez

No, no, no! That isn’t camping light! It is a hot pink gay Dalek and thus non-taxable!

Lostngone

In the US there is an unfair cooperation with China. It makes it almost impossible for US sellers to compete since they can't mail things for what people in China can sell them for all told. HRMC asking for their share is probably a good thing. No one likes the tax man but we need certain public conveniences as well.

Several years ago, the US government had a crack down on Paypal/eBay which was to target unreported income on people that were basically running unregistered businesses. So we had to start giving tax ID info to Paypal with the dissimilar that if we start receiving too much money, Paypal will have to report it to the IRS (our tax collection agency) and we'll need to report it properly on our tax filings. Or something to that sort. What you currently have seems similar to that, but that the HMRC is willing to spend a pound to collect a penny I guess.

Kadah

Meanwhile in the states, everything I've ordered from China so far, including some orders exceeding $150 of electronic parts for projects, have been except from duty. We seem to understand here that it costs more to collect duty on small shipments than the few dollars at most that could have been collected in duty.

Kadah

Maybe it's time to set up a Tenso box.

Timoran Synkral

I'm not sure if this something related to the Irish customs - Over the past year, nearly every item I ordered on Ebay from China took around 6 weeks, with one (5 mini digital hygrometers like BigClive showed a while back) taking 7 weeks. In previous years, the orders took 2 to 4 weeks. Then again, in the around 100 small purchases I made from China over the years, I never had an order not show up.

Seán Byrne

Only two?

So basically become like America where we lose money to buy cheaper stuff from other countries.

Entropic Nightmares

You realise that they don't just pile up the cash collected from VAT and roll around in it? It's money that pays for roads and schools and hospitals and yes, the shittier things that people disagree with. If you keep buying from sellers that don't pay tax, real shops will close, people will lose jobs, and there'll be even fewer ways to collect tax; it'll be coming from neither VAT nor income.

The Chinese seller does have an obligation to provide a correct shipping manifest though. Often when I get things shipped here, I get asked what I want put on the shipping information. As I'm buying for business, and have factored in vat/duty, I tell them to put the truth on the documents. I know a lot don't though.

Chloe Cresswell

Huh? There's something I'm missing here. A Chinese eBay seller, with no facilities or operations outside China, doesn't have any obligations to HMRC, period. If they sell to a UK buyer, it's up to HRMC to collect import duties from the buyer. I know there is a big problem with Amazon marketplace sellers keeping stock in UK warehouses and shipping from there, which does expose them to UK VAT rules, but I've never seen that happen on eBay.

Andrew Crawford

Sounds about right, I'm sure our lovely sellers have already found a handy dandy loop hole to use :P

Haydon Beagley

so HMRC has to search for and identify which sellers are non compliant, meanwhile the seller has just opened two more accounts.....

There is always AliExpress :)

I buy some things as they are so cheap that it just amazes me. 100 transistors for a few quid? The point is that the Chinese are making a profit and VAT is not the issue. Everything I buy has been under the VAT limit. The problem is not that the Chinese are cheap, it is that the UK is expensive.

The best part about learning electronics, aside from the Clive videos, is the price I pay for components from China. I doubt there are any other places that manufacture the things I buy. Good for me, good for the little guy in China. China supports it's vendors and I don't have a problem with that.

Jim

Oh joy....

Jono Harley

Whilst I wholeheartedly dislike Parcel Force's imposed fees, on top of the VAT/Duty, I don't really have too much sympathy for the Chinese sellers either. When they can sell and post an item from the other side of the world for less than it costs me in postage alone to send something next-door, there is something seriously wrong. Us UK sellers just can't compete. At one point, we were an authorised distributor (suppose we still are..) for a certainly high end brand of US produced ornaments. Even though we got them trade price, by the time VAT and Duty had been added (and paid in advance, so no extra fees) it was still cheaper for our customers to buy them direct from the States, as individually, they fell under the limits.

Rob O'Donnell

They've been doing this with the Amazon marketplace for a while now, they must have just got round to the treasure trove of Chinese imports that is eBay

For "search for a similar item from compliant seller" read "search for a similar item from a seller that hasn't been busted yet"

Gordo

Oh, we've been getting regally screwed over with stuff from the states for a while now.. The Chinese still seem to be getting away with "gifts", "value $1" etc. but it seems that is about to change..

Gordo

About time. Its hard for uk suppliers to compete against chinese sellers who are not paying vat

Literally their wee penny on many of the things you can buy off ebay with how amazingly cheap much of it is.

Is this from your Manx tax haven or on an order to be delivered to the Esplanade? 😀

Don't mind them charging import duty but please can customs and excise not take over two weeks on random packages (normally 3-5 days), not cost £8 for the delight of dealing with Parcel Force where you have to use Twitter to get the code used for paying it as the card never arrives, not deny any knowledge of having the package (that goes for Royal Mail too for the odd ones they get) and when they want to open packaging - not leave it in the rain so when it arrives the house stinks of rotten cardboard. Still think Amazon/eBay not charging the VAT themselves to make it easier for the consumer is a bit of a cop-out.

Beech Horn

This is for those sellers in China sending stuff over the VAT’able limit, sent as a gift or the price marked down. If the Government don’t make their pennies, how are they supposed to afford to pay themselves their expenses, bail out the NHS and pay for all the immigration?

evilution

This is that most of the big Chinese sellers have thousands of feedback and good %’s. Starting from scratch isn’t ideal.

evilution

HMRC, penny pinching toads!

Jim Norman

I didn't think there was any requirement for the seller to pay VAT if they are based overseas. The recipient in the UK would pay the VAT and any additional duty if it was worth over a certain amount which used to be £18. Would be interesting to know where the seller stated they were based or if they were shipping from a warehouse in the UK.

Have you tried Wish.com? They say they have a setup where you pay VAT directly and you don't get the processing fee.

Change name, problem solved. Change name doesn't resolve issue then change platform.

BB

HMRC. HAH! Let's see them cope with the sheer volume of stuff that comes in from the east

Phil Collins

I've noticed eBay start adding sales tax to some listings at time of payment. Doesn't explain it's VAT, but works out to be 20%, so that must be it. Needless to say I found somewhere else to buy from.

I'm sure if trump has anything to do with it, the states will follow suit soon.

Phr3d13

There is such a scheme but not for all vendors, I’ve seen that often for thing coming from the USA where you will pay import taxes in advance

Manoel

Over to Gumtree &amp; Cash! - <a href="https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/04/06/amazon_ebay_hmrc_vat_fraud/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/04/06/amazon_ebay_hmrc_vat_fraud/</a>

We got a similar thing in Sweden, last spring they have started charging VAT on all the shipments from outside the EU, 25% plus a FIXED "processing fee" of 75 SEK (~6.5 quid) per package. That effectively killed Aliexpress/Ebay/Gearbest for me, it's just not worth it anymore. Some sellers/sites have started shipping things through other EU countries to avoid that, but you never know in advance if you'll have to pay an extra £7 for a gadget worth £2.

Took them long enough to figure that out... AFAIK you can buy from anywhere out of Germany... but when your shipment arrives you are in for a "treat"... Taxes are on the buyer and collected by customs. 19% of the value plus fees

Tim Albers

thats just silly, i have ordered some items from far away places and if their value is more than some number i have to pay an added import tax. If the VAT is not on the price already. A while back i ordered a GPD WIn(a DS sized windows 10 palmtop pc) from banggood, and it cost me 400 ish euro, and when it arrived to findland i got a letter from customs i had to do a customs declaration on it, pay an additional 173(or as is 73, i forget) euro to get it sent to me, because it was over 300 euro and there was no vat. Now if i would have ordered the same item from a German importer(of retro and handheld game stuff) for nearly 500 euro there would have been no import cost added! learned my lesson. I live in Finland for those wondering

Orkekum

Australian government now demands a 10% GST onto the cost and shipping, mostly because some very rich Australian businesses whinged that they were losing business. However, most cheap items from eBay from overseas have no competition in the marketplace. The tax free threshold used to be $1000au (too high), now it's $0 (too low).

Loscha

Would it not be a better idea for ebay to setup some kind of scheme where you can pay the VAT on international purchases at source, and not suffer the wrath of the import duty card in the post box and the £8 handling fees, or the packages marked 'gift, value $1' that some of these sellers have been getting away with for years.

Dave Curran

In Sweden we've had similar since march. 75 SEK fee (around 7 euro/pounds) for all packages from outside of Europe that can't prove that they have paid taxes. Hundreds of thousands of small china packages per day was to big of a tax loss to ignore any more. Plus Swedish vendors was beginning to notice the lost sales.

If this is to do with Chinese vendors, there has been a problem with misdeclaration of the value of goods.

Stephen King

No surprise there.

Witold Witkowski

Oh that's a bummer. to AliExpress then, I suppose!

Chewie

Same thing happened in Australia. Amazon closed off their US store to AU buyers for tax reasons :(

Gavin

This will put Julian out of business too.

Why on Earth can't governments just leave people be, to get on with their lives?

Well, each eBay seller probably has a 100 different accounts, so it shouldn’t be much of a problem.

Getting ready for leaving the EU no doubt.

Adam Pepper

Is this the beginning of the end?

What the????

Manoel