From: axel@white-eagle.invalid.uk
Subject: Re: Warning to Ebay buyers re import charges
Newsgroups: uk.legal uk.finance
Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2006 19:35:19 GMT

In uk.legal Peter Johnson  wrote:

>>I notice that fairly recently, companies from the US  selling
>>downloadable goods like software and music include VAT in their bill.
>>Is this a scam since I cannot see a US based company having a UK VAT
>>account?  If you are VAT registered and  quote a UK VAT number when
>>you make the credit card payment, no VAT is charged so how is the VAT
>>accounted for?

> Not a scam. If they are importing to the EU thay have to charge VAT at
> the rate applicable at the point of delivery, presumably there's a
> mechanism for handing it over, in our case, to the UK treasury.

How do you work this out? VAT only requires to be charged in cases of x
thousands of pounds being charged each year (fill in x with whatever the
current amount is). US firms have no requirement to charge VAT... unless
they have an EU presence... so that might be the case here.

Actually it is a somewhat strange system... VAT for books is zero rated
in the UK so I have been able to order books from all over the world
without any extra payments... however ordering books from Amazon.co.uk
for delivery in the Netherlands and Spain has resulted in VAT being
applied.

Axel