EU buyers - the end of VAT exemption (July 1, 2021)

What is confusing is how Discogs started an announcement about fetching more taxes with the phrase "Good news!"

 

Just checked cdjapan. They do not collect VAT (at least at this moment).

This means that orders from them will go through customs in EU. So prepare to put VAT and post-office service fee atop of your order. For a CD with base price of 20€ and 10€ S&H the estimates are ~22€ charges from locals.

If cdjapan will not change their policy any time soon they will go out of business pretty fast. And different Japanese proxy services too.

 

If you buy your postage through ebay, then they will include a customs form with the IOSS number. The bigger problem might be 20% VAT included on postage, which is quite high to/from certain countries.

 

Sadly not true. It was 5 Euros for private persons and 10 Euros for commercial businesses.
From 01.07.2021 it's only VAT free if the amount to be paid doesn't exceed Euro 1,00 which is a joke.

 

**** all of these *** ****** taxes and paperwork ********!

 

Not just "good news" (oh no, not merely just that) but, indeed, exclamation point-worthy "great news!"

 

What to Know About Upcoming UK and EU VAT Changes on Discogs

 

I just bought a CD today from Discogs from an Italian seller, Discogs applied 20% VAT to the order including postage.
I am wondering now, how the seller should show that VAT has already been paid on outside of package? I don't think you can create labels through Discogs is that correct?

 

What to Know About Upcoming UK and EU VAT Changes on Discogs

 

It seems when you press "Print" from the order page the Commercial Receipt that is produced is quite large (3/4 A4 size). Have you figured out a way to print so that it can fit on the back of a CD sized packet?

 

Well, you may always play with printing configuration. And if the browser itself does not offer a satisfactory resizing option, then one could print/export the page to PDF or some text editor format, which should give more print resizing flexibility.

 

Scrolling the forum threads and totally forgot about this. I guess EU wanted to make up for the yearly UK tribute they lost post brexit.

I read an article stating that this will bring about €7 billion into EU vaults. It sure feels wrong that for a €10 CD bought from the UK, USA, Japan and even Switzerland we must pay additional VAT and customs fees just because it's outside EU. So much for globalization.

I hope they place new warehouses inside EU territories

By the way, I received a package from Amazon UK today (a £12 order placed a few days ago) and had to pay nothing, so it's still unclear how the new rules work.

 

Yes it seems inconsistent on Amazon. I have been charged no extra tax on any of my 2021 CD orders from Amazon.de but I have been charged 20% TVA on some of my orders from Amazon.fr, but not all of them - I do not know why this is.

 

Maybe you had to pay additional taxes for the more expensive stuff?

 

Yes the TVA was on higher value orders, one 70 euros, one 39 euros. Is there a minimum value for TVA?

 

IIRC, only for orders that cost 22euros or more.

 

Ah Ok, that makes sense.

 

Alright. Well I basically stopped ordering anything from outside the EU years ago, so I do not mind.

 

Funny thing. Japanese amazon stop collecting Import Fee Deposit. Instead it adds regular Japanese Sale Tax to the price (~10%) and placed a note at the payment page 'Import duties, custom duties and other charges may be levied in the country of delivery for purchased items to be shipped overseas and the purchase may be required to pay such import fees. Learn more'. Previously they removed Japanese Sale Tax and add Import Fee Deposit that was equal to your country VAT. In that case the orders pass through the customs smoothly.

This is kind of fishy. I hope that this is a bug and they will fix it soon. Otherwise EU customers will pay tax twice - local Japanese and Import EU VAT.

PS. Import Fee Deposit is collected normally on other amazon sites.

 

Wrong. The UK is now treated like any other Non-EU country. Which is what the UK wanted.

Wrong. You always pay VAT, whether you buy from within the EU or not, and you always pay customs fees (except for small values) when you import into the EU.

Wrong. The topic of this thread is literally that this exemption ended on July 1st.

 

It seems that amazon co.jp is out of the list for EU customers (at least for some time).
I contacted them with a question regarding EU VAT and this is what I got
____________
Thank you for patiently waiting for our report.

I confirmed that at this point it is clear that Amazon Japan is responsible to take international VAT collection for United Kingdom and Norway, hence for Portugal, shipping carrier may ask you for VAT when they deliver the item but in that case please let us know and we will check what we can do for it.

Please refer to VAT on E-Commerce:
Amazon.co.jp ヘルプ: VATについて

Again, we apologize for the inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your understanding and cooperation in advance.
______________
I experimented with different EU shipping addresses (Spanish, German, French) and got no Import Fee Deposit listed on checkout page too.

Thus, both big names cdjapan and amazon Japan currently are not with EU IOSS. And this sucks.
Hope they will resolve this issue soon. Otherwise for amazon we'll have to pay not only Japanese Sale Tax during purchase but also EU VAT and local post office service/clearance fees upon arrival. That will make purchase of one CD or LP from Japan completely economically unreasonable.

 

I'm seeing VAT for US items being added to my basket now. Based in Ireland, never saw this before.

 

This is good. It means that you will not face stupid custom clearance when the item will arrive to Ireland.
It seems that all amazon sites except ca and co.jp are calculating Import Fee Deposit properly.
This is unfortunate, for those who are for Japanese editions. Hope they will be back on track soon.

 

An answer from cdjapan customer service
___________
Thank you for your inquiry.

Yes, we confirm that we are currently preparing our website for the new VAT rules in the EU. Our prices still do not include VAT as of today but we are definitely going to be including the VAT in our prices as a registered retailer.

We hope to include VAT in our prices within this month and when we do, we will make sure that you will notice it on our website.
___________
So it is necessary to wait a bit until they will update their policy and website.

 

As noted upthread the 22 euro threshold was abolished per 1 July 2021. VAT is due on every item imported into the EU regardless of its worth.