If I look at this bag (which looks quite nice BTW) in German its 18.85euros. If I change it to English it goes up to 19.21euros. It isn’t much of an increase, but it is a bit like sand in your pants for being a Tommy.

Hey, apparently we “voted for change”…

Welcome to change.

DIfferent VAT rates being applied (19 v 20%).

Boom that’s it Mr Pinnick, well observed. I feel marginally less diddled now..
I shall tell the expeditionary force to stand down.

No, its ok you probably should keep them on alert. I don’t think they _need_ to charge us more, so its either someone being too clever with the ecommerce system (‘Hey look I imported every VAT and GST rate in the world at once!’) or they are doing some kind of UK import then supply, which would only make sense to dodge some other tax.

Yes I had a niggling feeling that they don’t need to do this. Hmmmmm, I’ve got sand down my front again.

When you supply services or sell goods in your own country, you are subject to your country’s VAT obligations. However, when you make sales outside your country, the VAT applied is based on where the transaction is deemed to take place.

https://ec.europa.eu/growth/tools-databases/dem/watify/selling-online/how-can-i-comply-vat-obligations?language=en

It has been the case for a long time that VAT has to be charged at the rate of the purchasers country, irc the total sales have to be above a certain value before it can be enforced. It was to stop the likes of amazon and play.com cheating vat rules by basing in the channel isles.

I think the transaction is taking place in Germany, so I should pay German vat.
All that channel isles stuff was them sellling stuff through .co.uk websites and making it look like you had bought it from a UK seller.

That’s correct 5plusn8 a consumer transaction is deemed to have taken place in the country of origin, however they could be importing to the U.K. Under the guise of a U.K. Business, then selling it on (in a virtual sense) from that business and hence charge U.K. Vat. They would however only do this if they have a U.K. Co. And wanted to save on corporate tax or something like that – I think it’s about 10% difference at the moment so worth doing if your Buisness is big enough over here I would guess.

I thought they could quite easily *NOT* charge you VAT, but then you have to pay HMRC via Royal Mail instead, who also levy an £8 handling charge into the bargain.

Which is why the item I bought from the states for £19 is now likely to cost me £53 (inc shipping) 😳

Seems to be when you choose UK as country, rather than choosing English (or choosing .com international site – used to be .net for the German one).
Which is fortunate, cos for a moment I thought I’d been paying 20% VAT instead of 19% MwSt for shipping to Germany but all transactions in English.
Just checked last invoice and it said 19% VAT. Also bike-components.de is the same (and they process orders a million times faster than bike24, but their website is only half in English).

I thought they could quite easily *NOT* charge you VAT, but then you have to pay HMRC via Royal Mail instead, who also levy an £8 handling charge into the bargain.

That’s just for non-EU traders (currently).

Which is why the item I bought from the states for £19 is now likely to cost me £53 (inc shipping)

Probably what you can expect for all your non-UK purchases once we’ve fully ‘taken back control’.

andytherocketeer – Member
Seems to be when you choose UK as country, rather than choosing English (or choosing .com international site – used to be .net for the German one).

This doesn’t work, I stuck with germany all the way through stays at 19%, as soon as I put in a UK delivery address it changes back to 20%.