rfs1957 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 31, 2021 5:11 pm
Amongst the nonsense, and not letting the facts of the original post get in the way of a good story, how about a reality check.
Robeys sent two parcels to the wrong customers, switched.
That is their problem and they should pick up the cost.
Nothing whatsoever to do with Brexit, and the shipping between France and Germany is unchanged.
What is new is that all exports from the UK will now be without VAT, even to non-VAT registered individuals in Europe.
This was always the case for VAT registered businesses.
So, with apologies for the mathematical inaccuracy, the price of parts leaving the UK just got cheaper by 20% (actually by one sixth) for European retail customers.
When they arrive in the EU, however, VAT is owed on them within the country they are delivered to.
In France, for example, our VAT/TVA is 20%, so the price of the imported part simply goes back up to what it used to be, unchanged.
This is not a trade tax, or a tariff, it’s VAT.
Brexit has made not one iota of difference.
HOWEVER, and it’s a BIG however, the problem is that -
1. Shippers like FedEx appear to have decided to increase the cost of the shipping, in SNGBs case this has gone from £16 to £25 on equivalent recent despatches, AND
2. when FedEx deliver, they are charging an extra 16€ to COLLECT the TVA from the final customer, ON TOP of the VAT itself.
There are two solutions.
Julian says that French customers will be able to pay the French TVA at the same time that they order and pay for the parts, and this will apply to other EU countries, on the SNGB web site, and then - unbelievably, but confirmed by similar information sent to me by the French Colissimo operation - SNGB will pay that TVA to the French, or other EU, government.
French shippers using Colissimo will have an account with the UK government and pay the UK VAT on the stuff they ship the other way
The other solution for EU residents will be to order via their national SNGB site, like the French one in our case, at the same price as the UK site, accept a longer delivery time (Macon gets two deliveries a week), and then only pay the French delivery cost, ie delivery within France.
Thus the parts will actually end up costing less.
Whilst I concur that this will be a royal shit-storm to begin with, all these details will just be a few lines of code in various algorithms and back-office stuff, and my prediction is that in six months time we’ll wonder what all the fuss was about.
PS if this is Judged politically sensitive, perhaps a moderator would remove what follows, but FWIIW, whilst you would never know this from reading the French press, almost everyone I know on the ground (and have been here 40 years) has a massive amount of sympathy for the reasoning, correct or otherwise, that led the British to vote to leave.
