Selling stuff to EU countries

red_harrington

Well-known member
I sold a record to a chap in Germany for £15 ex VAT.

He just told me he had to pay import VAT 20% - which is fair enough - but also a 25 euro handling fee.

So the record he bought has actually ended up costing him more than double what it was listed for. I can't see him buying from me again.

Which means my sales to Europe will plummet if this carries on, and European sales usually account for about 25-30% of my business.

Can anyone who voted Brexit please explain why this is a good thing?
 
but you get a Blue passport (made in France by the way) so its swings and roundabouts
I've just couriered a box of "personal belongings" to my son in the UK and had to fill in bl00dy customs declarations, tarif numbers (that I had to find myself) and estimated costs for each and every item - absolutely ridiculous.

It'll be "interesting" to see if UK Customs try and add tax onto goods that were already his (stuff he left here last time he was over)
 
I sold a record to a chap in Germany for £15 ex VAT.

He just told me he had to pay import VAT 20% - which is fair enough - but also a 25 euro handling fee.

So the record he bought has actually ended up costing him more than double what it was listed for. I can't see him buying from me again.

Which means my sales to Europe will plummet if this carries on, and European sales usually account for about 25-30% of my business.

Can anyone who voted Brexit please explain why this is a good thing?
Take the positives. You save 5% tax on your Tampons now.
 
I've just couriered a box of "personal belongings" to my son in the UK and had to fill in bl00dy customs declarations, tarif numbers (that I had to find myself) and estimated costs for each and every item - absolutely ridiculous.

It'll be "interesting" to see if UK Customs try and add tax onto goods that were already his (stuff he left here last time he was over)
It's not cheap checking parcels to see if they're hiding illegal immigrants.
 
Yeah we got a letter from Parcel Force this morning, someone has sent us something from Switzerland (we don't know what or who, as we have loads of mates who live there, so it could be from one of about 30 people) and they want us to pay £31.25 in import fees and handling charges to even find what it is.

It could be worth a quid for all we know, until we open it.
 
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Cooper is on another thread defending the indefensible as usual.

🥱

Funny how on a Brexit thread someone asked where the remainers were and the reaction was “oh its like this is it expected to be on and answering at the beck and call of the brexiteers” but i should be immediately on here to answer someone moaning about charges selling things to the EU

Yeah ok
 
I'd be interested to know what these "handling charges" are - that's what I'm paying the poxy courier company to do - handle it

I could be wrong but I think it's "taking it out of their delivery system to hand to the customs people so they can raise charges, and then take it back from them to put back into the delivery system"

Parcelforce do the same thing but it's £8

All this could be circumvented if there was free trade
 
I could be wrong but I think it's "taking it out of their delivery system to hand to the customs people so they can raise charges, and then take it back from them to put back into the delivery system"

Parcelforce do the same thing but it's £8

All this could be circumvented if there was free trade

yeah the handling fees are basically to cover their admin costs in processing the payments, passing it to where it needs to go etc and dealing with you to arrange all this.

I used to buy camera lenses from china and used to get stung by £100 fees by DHL.

My perfume business will basically need to close because the tax, handling fees and duty on a £500 bottle of perfume will just make it unfeasible.
 
Handling costs will be from the courier you used. Use a different courier.
With most couriers you can opt to pay the vat on behalf of the customer and you can then claim it back on your vat return. You can also pay the duty for the customer but can't claim that back.
 
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