How many other people have been hit by charges on books?
My sister ordered me two books on-line from The Book Depository as a present. Both were 15€ in value.
The first was from an Australian publisher and came from their Australian dispatch centre. No charges.
The second from a UK publisher, sent from their UK dispatch centre. 10€ charge from the courier campany for customs fees!
Now, I am worried about getting some important documents sent over from the UK by friends. Any tips about how to avoid these charges. Reading this thread, they seem arbitrary.
I had a recent delivery from book depository, and there was an extra charge on ordering but then arrived in the post as normal.
Our printer is broken, so couldn’t print out a CN22 to send back faulty merchandise to UK so got a code instead…30minutes at post office while post person scratched his head and looked in manuals to work out what to do! He admitted he’d been on télétravail for most of the last 18months so was a touch out of date but it added a frustration to an already annoying situation.
It all depends whether the sender is signed up to and uses the new pan EU IOSS duty system which processes duty etc automatically.
Amazon does and as the Book Depository is owned by Amazon, as is ABE, the second hand dealer, I’m surprised at what you experienced.
I guess subscription rates in general will marginally increase…additional postage and vat on mags (nil in UK but2.5%? here) on renewal. I suspect most publishers will swallow this as its hardly worth the effort to increase mid term.
IOSS is the crucial factor.
well I have scan read the posts in this topic and still I don’t feel I understand fully.
I have bought from amazon uk and received goods without any additional charge.
My son posted me a parcel and la poste would not let me have it until I paid them a charge.
I received a package via a courier and some days later an invoice to pay more charges.
It seems a bit hit and miss.
Furthermore, not that logic has anything to do with it, I do not see the logic of VAT being paid twice and I cannot find anywhere an explanation as to how the charges imposed are calculated. La Poste wanted 64€ on a parcel of gifts valued at 200€ but could not give me a facture detailing how the charges have been arrived at.
If we know how the charges are calculated we can lie about what is in the package to perhaps circumvent the regs !
You can buy things VAT free in the UK for export, and so only pay once when you pay TVA in France. However if you have paid VAT in the UK then tough.
It does seem to be a bit hit and miss, but I imagine it will settle down eventually. However this has always been around, just not on UK-France goods. I remember have to pay delivery man for some things I bought from Japan years back.
Quite simple, Amazon and other big cross border online retailers now have systems in place that use IOSS, the automated process including generation of local VAT and duty, which means there are no handling charges.
Most automated systems for these big ecomerce sites now use prices net of UK VAT to calculate a “basket” price once a none UK sale is requested and then add local tax on, as they are configured to account for vat free sales to HMRC and then pay it to say France plus any duty, or at least that is the theory to avoid tax being levied at point of sale and on delivery.
Whereas if you toddle off to the the Post office in UK to send here it is all manually processed…and buying items locally will result in paying VAT and then La Poste levies TVA and import duty and charges for the privilege.
All because the UK is not now in a common trading bloc.
Additionally from 1st July the €23 value below which TVA was applied was abolished.
At least that’s what an online retailer told me.
BREXIT the present that keeps on giving!
thanks Strudball, but still there are uncertainties; If I may ask, what are your thoughts on the following with reference to your post:
Amazon and other big cross border online retailers now have systems in place that use IOSS, -I wonder how we can know in advance if a proposed supplier does this?
then La Poste levies TVA and import duty and charges for the privilege. - how can we know how much the import duty will be? - and for that matter what are their charges likely to be? (I suppose for ‘La Poste’ we can substitute any local courrier?)
I would appreciate your thoughts. I am not trying to be pedantic, but I believe that we should have at our disposal the tools to know in advance what charges are likely to be levied.
…I’m no expert but I think most established e-commerce organisations will have set this up…even a couple of publishers from whom I get mags on subscription now seem to be using it and I have experienced no delays.
Re costs, link below might help