Brexit, for once some facts.

oyster

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you are still paying UK VAT for goods bought from overseas sellers even when it's under £135. See the explanation below.

This is the legal position from 1-January:

For most consignments not exceeding £135 in value, instead of VAT being collected at importation or delivery to the customer, VAT will be accounted for at the point of sale.

For VAT purposes the supply will be treated as follows:

  • if an OMP is not involved in facilitating the sale, there will be a supply direct from the seller to the consumer, which will be deemed to take place in the UK and so liable to UK VAT
  • if an OMP is involved in facilitating the sale, they will be deemed, for VAT purposes, to be making the supply to the UK consumer, which will be deemed to take place in the UK with UK VAT chargeable accordingly
In both instances the value of the goods for VAT purposes will be based on the price at which they are sold to the consumer rather than any valuation calculated at the point of importation.

For goods that are located overseas at the point of sale, the new arrangements will apply irrespective of where the OMP or the business selling the goods is established.

This means that the following types of businesses will have to register for UK VAT (if not already registered) and account for VAT to HMRC:

  • any business that operates an OMP that facilitates sales of goods to UK customers
  • any business that sells goods directly (without OMP involvement) to UK customers where the goods are (a) outside UK at the point of sale (b) imported to the UK in consignments not exceeding £135 in value
Businesses established outside the UK and selling goods to UK customers where the goods are already in the UK at the point of sale are liable for UK VAT on those sales under existing rules. Such businesses should already be VAT registered.
And if those companies don't register for VAT with the HMRC (and do returns, remit funds, etc.) what can and will HMRC do?

Can you see HMRC chasing companies across the world for failing to register and collect VAT? Indeed, it might even be illegal for some to do so under their own laws. (Acting as an agent of a foreign government - even just for collecting VAT - might well end up in supreme courts.)

I can't see the consumer being chased - unless HMRC try to ban all personal imports unless VAT has been demonstrated to have been collected.

We seem to be in a worse place than we were before brexit. At least then, UK vendors were charging UK VAT on goods sent to EU countries - as some sort of balance to goods going the other way. Now HMRC don't get anything in many cases.
 
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oldgroaner

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The good news
Nissan's new battery factory
The new factory at Nissan’s existing Sunderland site would be run by Nissan’s Chinese battery maker Envision AESC, and support the production of 200,000 battery cars a year as well as thousands of jobs, according to three people briefed on the private discussions.
Nissan wants significant financial support worth at least tens of millions of pounds from the government for the project, including a route to lower its energy costs for producing the batteries, two of the people added.
!t's NOT Nissan. It's Nissans Chinese owned battery partner Envision. Envision also building a huge new battery plant in N. France to supply Renault (Nissans Euro partner), and other makers, across mainland Europe. Brexit = Import/Export complications.

On the plus side some jobs saved
On the minus side profits to Japan and China using our labour force, money, energy and preventing home grown industry having a future
 
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oyster

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buy one and you tell me if you have to pay extra to import it ;)
Partner has just ordered something from Italy. (From a company she used many times before brexit - but has refused to register with HMRC and so will not supply goods under £135.)

The Italian company is under the impression that the £135 bar is supposed to include P&P - it isn't.

What she has bought is over £135 in total, but under £135 actual price. Will be interesting to see what happens. The company isn't charging VAT - neither Italian nor UK. Even if there is quite a charge (e.g. VAT plus carrier charges), it will be much less expensive than the same stuff from a UK supplier of exactly the same products.)
 

Danidl

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I yesterday received an extensive email from An Post ..The Irish equivalent of the Royal Mail. Basically it said that all goods coming from the UK , were now subject to duty and the exemption which existed up to today 1st July on small value ..under 22euro , was now gone. Anything coming would be fee collected by the postman on delivery. If course EU sourced goods remain VAT and Duty free.
 

sjpt

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Probably spurious because of huge differences in the way reporting works, but UK now has more new Covid cases than Brazil. (still plenty of other countries higher still)
 

flecc

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Oct 25, 2006
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The good news
Nissan's new battery factory
The new factory at Nissan’s existing Sunderland site would be run by Nissan’s Chinese battery maker Envision AESC, and support the production of 200,000 battery cars a year as well as thousands of jobs, according to three people briefed on the private discussions.
Nissan wants significant financial support worth at least tens of millions of pounds from the government for the project, including a route to lower its energy costs for producing the batteries, two of the people added.
!t's NOT Nissan. It's Nissans Chinese owned battery partner Envision. Envision also building a huge new battery plant in N. France to supply Renault (Nissans Euro partner), and other makers, across mainland Europe. Brexit = Import/Export complications.

On the plus side some jobs saved
On the minus side profits to Japan and China using our labour force, money, energy and preventing home grown industry having a future
Correct. And in addition which the media do not appear to know (!) is that Nissan built it's own new battery factory at Sunderland some four years ago, my 2018 Leaf e-car has one of the lithium traction batteries produced there.

And another bit of government/media/Nissan dishonesty. To help this new battery factory projects along, they hinted that there was a new electric crossover to be announced which might be made there. In fact that supposedly new electric crossover was first announced in early 2020, it's called the Ariya and at the time it was said it won't be made at Sunderland. Here's a photo of it:



And here's a video of it being driven in May:

.
 

Woosh

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May 19, 2012
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what can and will HMRC do?
the courier and Royal Mail will complete the import declaration and charge you the cost + £11 admin fee.
In practice, courier companies and Royal Mail will insist that you complete the customs declaration before they let you pay.
Partner has just ordered something from Italy. (From a company she used many times before brexit - but has refused to register with HMRC and so will not supply goods under £135.)

The Italian company is under the impression that the £135 bar is supposed to include P&P - it isn't.

What she has bought is over £135 in total, but under £135 actual price. Will be interesting to see what happens. The company isn't charging VAT - neither Italian nor UK. Even if there is quite a charge (e.g. VAT plus carrier charges), it will be much less expensive than the same stuff from a UK supplier of exactly the same products.)
The £135 is the duty threshold.
Below that, duty is zero, you only have to pay VAT.
So there is a bit of saving.
 

oyster

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Nov 7, 2017
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the courier and Royal Mail will complete the import declaration and charge you the cost + £11 admin fee.
In practice, courier companies and Royal Mail will insist that you complete the customs declaration before they let you pay.

The £135 is the duty threshold.
Below that, duty is zero, you only have to pay VAT.
So there is a bit of saving.
The £135 is indeed the duty threshold, I agree.

But it is also the threshold for whether the VAT charging is at source (i.e. vendor abroad) or at point of importation.

If the item is over £135, yes, certainly the carrier will charge the recipient.

Under £135 VAT should have been charged by the vendor. I have yet to read or hear of anyone getting charged VAT in these circumstances. Could well be my limited contacts! People all over the place are receiving their goods with no VAT charged.

And partner's order mentioned earlier is not an excisable product.
 

oyster

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Sunak has failed to get a financial services deal with the EU and has given up on that. Was that one of the easy deals?
 

oldgroaner

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Correct. And in addition which the media do not appear to know (!) is that Nissan built it's own new battery factory at Sunderland some four years ago, my 2018 Leaf e-car has one of the lithium traction batteries produced there.

And another bit of government/media/Nissan dishonesty. To help this new battery factory projects along, they hinted that there was a new electric crossover to be announced which might be made there. In fact that supposedly new electric crossover was first announced in early 2020, it's called the Ariya and at the time it was said it won't be made at Sunderland. Here's a photo of it:



And here's a video of it being driven in May:

.
My first reaction...
Has it been in a side impact shunt? :cool:
 
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jonathan.agnew

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Dec 27, 2018
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But how many more would have died if they hadn't been vaccinated?
Its troubling: of the 92000 recorded delta variant cases 58% were unvaccinated and 8% fully vaccinated, but (at risk of sounding like polly) 43% of the deaths were fully vaccinated
Edit - it may be a correlation - eg the fully vaccinated being older, perhaps, but I still find it worrying
But yes - for now - it's a 0.12% death rate (117 out of 92k)
 
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oyster

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Talk about negative! Use this new video link and after hearing it all the way though, look at all the comments below which are universally full of praise.

The Ariya is going to be very successful.
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Watched and that guy said lots of things which I really don't agree with. I don't find it attractive.

The interior is far too dark for my taste.

Might well be successful - as has been the Qashqai - but I didn't like that either - except the panoramic glass roof option.
 

flecc

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Oct 25, 2006
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Watched and that guy said lots of things which I really don't agree with. I don't find it attractive.

The interior is far too dark for my taste.

Might well be successful - as has been the Qashqai - but I didn't like that either - except the panoramic glass roof option.
The name of the game for a car maker is getting it right for the majority, and Nissan have been getting a lot of things right for them since 2010, after a rather poor previous decade.

I don't know if you read all the comments on the Ariya in that link, but they were universally favourable and often from owners of some very good present cars.

I suspect you won't like a lot of the new e-cars since partly out of necessity, they are often going to look quite a bit different from what we are used to.
.
 
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flecc

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Oct 25, 2006
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It was a joke flecc! you must admit the side does look shall ,we say "accidental" :)
Normal these days for good reasons, Peugeot long ago initiated that inward curve between the axle lines on their original 308 model. There's nothing worse for amplifying road noise than body panels which are too flat as a trip in any van shows, changing shape in two or more planes solves that.
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