New Vat rules

[caperestorer]

My eBay account is registered in the UK, but I am resident in and sell from South Africa.  Can anyone tell me how the new July 2021 vat rules apply to me?

[tdumonde2014]

I would ask this question on the UK forum, we don't have VAT in the US.

[duncanvr]

From 1st January BREXIT rules on all imports to UK were forced so ebay has to collect 20% VAT on any sellers not living in the UK but listing on their UK site. On buy it now they add the 20% on top of your list price. On auctions they add 20% on your buyers invoice. One way or the other any of your buyers living in UK have to pay the 20% import VAT. Its really hurt sales in a big way. I also list directly on ebay UK though I don't live there. I can tell you many UK buyers are not happy with the tax and are buying much less from international sellers. So the rules apply to you as your importing merchandise to the UK. It doesn't seem to matter what products you sell either. Mine are older than 200 year old collectors items. In past these type of items were never taxed with online taxes but they are these days.

[48hrs-clothing]

I assume you have your VAT rate set to 0% on all your listings as you ship from South Africa.

If not then bulk edit all your listings VAT to %.

This should be all that you are required to do.

You account being registered in UK is immaterial as  you ship from South Africa and all imports into all countries are and have always been subject to those countries laws.

When you send something from South Africa to any other country you are required to fill in a customs declaration form and attach this to package. Customs (according to trade agreements between the concerned countries)  in receiving country determine any duty and or VAT that is payable on the item and send a payment demand to recipient and on receipt of payment package is released.

Duty and VAT are taxes paid by the consumer and rates are set by their home country.

In UK we sellers are required to registered with HMRC subject to turnover and are required to collect VAT on all sales that we make to our domestic buyers and to remit these to HMRC.

Individuals who sell periodically their own items ( Not as a business) are not required to register for VAT . 

After Brexit eBay have been tasked by EU and UK government to collect these taxes on cross border trade and remit to respective country's authorities. Idea being that this will cause least disruption in these countries customs as items will be automatically bulk cleared and will help maintain reasonable delivery time to consumers.

The start date of this requirement is 1st July 2021.

I have found that sending overseas packages through eBay's GSP (Global shipping programme) works well for me and buyer knows exactly how much Postage, and import charges including Vat he needs to pay and he does this when he completes his checkout.

Hope this helps.