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Guess we'll have to deal with this upcoming change to shipping for UK consumers as signs show that companies will have to pay for VAT upfront to the UK come January 1st (and items under £15 will be no longer exempt from VAT). Seeing some stores already saying nope to this is concerning especially for non amazon (who of course already do this) companies who additional costs for a likely small market (I wonder if Right Stuf, JB Hi Fi and plenty of others will just close sales to the UK due to the costs and reduced profits). This is basically all bad, and it's all being done in attempt to save time with customs checks.
Is that actually happening though.
Didn't the UK want to have free trade deals and lower vat so they can under cut the EU?
So that £15 limit might actually go up.
 
Is that actually happening though.
Didn't the UK want to have free trade deals and lower vat so they can under cut the EU?
So that £15 limit might actually go up.
Of course am no expert but, trade deals eliminate tariffs (NOT IMPORT DUTY which is VAT) for businesses importing goods and services (of various kinds). It does not, in fact, eliminate import duty for a consumer ordering from outside the UK. Import policy is government set and it currently seems that is being done to avoid adding to its new lorry park queues even further following the 1st of January.
 
I don't understand how the changes to personal imports will do anything other than convince overseas suppliers to blacklist UK orders. It's completely unrealistic to add that much of a workload for one country and I cannot imagine that it's worth the time/money involved for a lot of them. A lot of overseas websites still block EU visitors outright because GDPR compliance is too confusing! The transition period is going to be an absolute nightmare for end users and I'm really not looking forward to any of it; I've already got some orders lined up to come in through proxy addresses and I can tell that there will be many headaches ahead of me :/

Of course, the government want everyone buying locally in the first place so this plays into their agenda just fine.

R
 
It's psychology 101. Something changes and the brain instantly thinks of the worst case scenario which very rarely happens. That is literally how we are built so I get it. As soon as that was pointed out to me in my training nothing really phases me anymore so I don't think it will be as bad as people are fearing.

For example this new UK tarrif is literally just a replacement for one that already exists within EU law.

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For example this new UK tarrif is literally just a replacement for one that already exists within EU law.

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Those are business tariffs, not personal imports. Again, this applies to companies that are being asked to pay Import Duty (Which is VAT) upfront before the arrival of an order in the UK (and on ALL orders, no minimums). This includes filing paperwork to our HMRC before the order has even been sent out. To end here, this may be a big problem or smaller companies will struggle and push through it (or just blacklist the UK).
 
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Those are business tariffs, not personal imports. Again, this applies to companies that are being asked to pay Import Duty (Which is VAT) upfront before the arrival of an order in the UK (and on ALL orders, no minimums). This includes filing paperwork to our HMRC before the order has even been sent out. To end here, this may be a big problem or smaller companies will struggle and push through it (or just blacklist the UK).

Yea dude it's literally the thing you've been on about this whole time. I looked it up I see no reason to panic
 
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Yea dude it's literally the thing you've been on about this whole time. I looked it up I see no reason to panic
Screenshot 2020-10-22 at 19.06.50.png
Once again, it's for business tariffs like steel and those set by the WTO and only such things, NOT for import duty (VAT for personal goods).
 
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Once again, it's for business tariffs like steel and those set by the WTO and only such things, NOT for import duty (VAT for personal goods).

So this must be what you are talking about?
1603391401525.png

But it's still kind of whatever. I still much prefer for the cost to be upfront instead of invoiced. Really the biggest company affected is Fedex and their admin fee's lol, if the smaller companies do pull out I'll find somewhere else.
 
So how does this actually work.
If I purchase something at £15 from a private seller. The seller then charges me the additional costs, then pays them to the UK?

Yeah, or they could just sell that item to someone in the US and not bother with the hassle of registering for UK VAT when it doesn't really benefit them, which is my concern. There are a lot of situations where overseas companies are supposed to register with local tax offices to ship into a country for certain types of transaction and almost nobody ever does, because no small business has the time or manpower to account for something so fiddly (and often in a foreign language) and make tiny currency payments across borders every reporting period when they could just... not. Making it mandatory and effectively the buyer's problem when we can't import things any more (or take responsibility by paying the customs charge themselves) is going to suck. For us.

R
 
I need to pick the brains of the cinema savvy among us if that's ok. As my primary hobby is gaming and PC's this isn't my strong suite. I'm saving up to get a nice 4k TV at somepoint next year so I can play the PS5 and hook my PC up for some couch gaming as well, but also to watch 4k films on. So I wanted to use this opportunity to set up a nice little inexpensive home theatre setup for myself. I understand the sound on flatscreen TV's aren't the best (but hey guess what I've been using this whole time) and I've been advised in reddit posts not to bother with a sound bar but to start up like a 3.1 channel speaker system so I can expand it later with more speakers if I wanted?

Frankly I don't know where to start nor even what such a thing might even cost so I will probably need some tips. Though I'm a little more inclined to get the soundbar honestly, I trust you guys more than reddit and wanted to ask you first.
 
Yeah, or they could just sell that item to someone in the US and not bother with the hassle of registering for UK VAT when it doesn't really benefit them, which is my concern. There are a lot of situations where overseas companies are supposed to register with local tax offices to ship into a country for certain types of transaction and almost nobody ever does, because no small business has the time or manpower to account for something so fiddly (and often in a foreign language) and make tiny currency payments across borders every reporting period when they could just... not. Making it mandatory and effectively the buyer's problem when we can't import things any more (or take responsibility by paying the customs charge themselves) is going to suck. For us.

R
Yep. Am curious who at least tries to carry on with this situation at first. As a collector of dumb stuff, I am curious about websites like Mondo, Sideshow and AmiAmi (which seems the most likely to be a problem) if they carry on as usual or if they stop. UK stockists stepping their game wouldn't go amiss either.
 
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Sounds like my figure pre-ordered from Japan could get caught in this (I assume OMP are sites like Amazon and companies on eBay). On its own it's £110, assuming shipping counts towards the £135 figure it would have to be over ¥3000 and the method I chose doesn't go that high!
Although does the fact we've actually managed to negotiate a deal mean it's different with Japan?
 
I need to pick the brains of the cinema savvy among us if that's ok. As my primary hobby is gaming and PC's this isn't my strong suite. I'm saving up to get a nice 4k TV at somepoint next year so I can play the PS5 and hook my PC up for some couch gaming as well, but also to watch 4k films on. So I wanted to use this opportunity to set up a nice little inexpensive home theatre setup for myself. I understand the sound on flatscreen TV's aren't the best (but hey guess what I've been using this whole time) and I've been advised in reddit posts not to bother with a sound bar but to start up like a 3.1 channel speaker system so I can expand it later with more speakers if I wanted?

Frankly I don't know where to start nor even what such a thing might even cost so I will probably need some tips. Though I'm a little more inclined to get the soundbar honestly, I trust you guys more than reddit and wanted to ask you first.

if you have the speakers getting a nicer sound system set up will be a hell of a lot cheaper, i currently use nearly 20 year old 5.1 speakers from an old dvd system and they seem to be fine still but i went to a locally owned AV store that had a Yamaha reciever on clearance for £150 new which i considered a good deal until i looked online and saw everywhere else was still selling them for £300-400+ which made it even better, problem is i think you'll be looking to pay a bit more because of 4k and with a PS5 and HDR/Dolby vision i think you may need to make sure the hdmi ports on the reciever or atleast 1 of them supports 2.1
 
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Sounds like my figure pre-ordered from Japan could get caught in this (I assume OMP are sites like Amazon and companies on eBay). On its own it's £110, assuming shipping counts towards the £135 figure it would have to be over ¥3000 and the method I chose doesn't go that high!
Although does the fact we've actually managed to negotiate a deal mean it's different with Japan?
Regarding the Japanese trade deal, its very unlikely to be anything more than tariffs being removed for businesses and other services so not likely to affect this. Hard to say what will happen and hopefully retailers will try work with this situation but expect some strange emails about it. Got figures myself mixed up in this that got delayed past January and am hoping for the best (Turns out preordering A Kaguya Nendoroid from Belgium may have been a mistake!)

Also sounds like that figure might just scrape into customs duty threshold too of £135 but that 2.5% additional as well to the total.
 
if you have the speakers getting a nicer sound system set up will be a hell of a lot cheaper, i currently use nearly 20 year old 5.1 speakers from an old dvd system and they seem to be fine still but i went to a locally owned AV store that had a Yamaha reciever on clearance for £150 new which i considered a good deal until i looked online and saw everywhere else was still selling them for £300-400+ which made it even better, problem is i think you'll be looking to pay a bit more because of 4k and with a PS5 and HDR/Dolby vision i think you may need to make sure the hdmi ports on the reciever or atleast 1 of them supports 2.1

I've chosen a TV with exactly that (although there will probably be a newer model out by time I'm ready to buy). So I'll need to look at a reciever as well then, also this would be a build entirely from scratch as I don't have any speakers either so no cost saving sadly. Hmm perhaps just getting a soundbar is the right choice. Thanks for the reply :)
 
I've chosen a TV with exactly that (although there will probably be a newer model out by time I'm ready to buy). So I'll need to look at a reciever as well then, also this would be a build entirely from scratch as I don't have any speakers either so no cost saving sadly. Hmm perhaps just getting a soundbar is the right choice. Thanks for the reply :)
if you have facebook try looking at the local selling groups, i always see people trying to flog dvd surround sound systems for £50-60 that generally have 4 small speakers and a center speaker, should be fine as long as it's standard speaker wire and not those proprietary plugs that some had as i'm not 100% on those
 
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