SOUND ON SOUND

[MOF]

I seem to recall VAT was originally sold to us as a 'luxury' tax which would only be applied to your second superyacht.

Income tax was only meant to be temporary measure, it was introduced to finance the Napoleonic war. :lol:

[N i g e l]

I was just reading about a new cutsy euro electric city car, "Microlino"
£10,500

oh ! thats a bit steep.

for UK purchasers its £13k

[MOF]

I was just reading about a new cutsy euro electric city car, "Microlino"
£10,500

If you want to buy new then there’s not much choice at that price, but you can buy a second hand Nissan Leaf for less than £10k and you get five seats and plenty of boot space.
Also it’s possible to export electricity, V2G, on versions post 2013 to help fund your purchase.
With a ‘gate’ and inverter you can use the car to provide about two days backup power to your house in the event of a power cut, so no down time in your studio. :D
You can see Robert Llewellyn’s review of his 2011 car here https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2qPF11PmP8k spoiler alert, he says it’s great and there’s not much to go wrong with them, cheap and easy to service.
Lots of good Eco topics on his Fully Charged Show website https://fullycharged.show/ and YouTube channel.
For those that don’t know him he plays Kryten in Red Dwarf and has presented Scrap Heap Challenge.

[steveisall]

I'm not sure I describe it as a 'scam' any more than any other form of taxation (not saying I like it mind you but taxes have to be paid and collected

Agreed, taxes have to be collected by the government, but taking 20% of your turnover, up front and regardless of your profitability, is certainly a ‘racket’.
If your profit margin is small then once you exceed the VAT threshold you’ve got to do a lot more turnover to increase your profits.

that's fine to try to get people to buy British, I do exactly that wherever possible, but when it is something you simply can't buy in this country then what options do you have? The guitar I was ready to buy would cost me £458 more now than it would have in December. My mistake for not using my head.

[Sam Spoons]

That sounds like a big increase, how have you worked that out? Did you have a pre Brexshit price or calculate it from exchange rates and VAT?

Welcome BTW

[MOF]

that's fine to try to get people to buy British

It’s not a way to get people to buy British, it’s a way to increase consumption.
If there’s no VAT on British goods there won’t be any on foreign (EU) imports either, since you currently have a nett price on foreign websites and pay the UK rate of VAT on top of that.
The thing that might encourage buying British is the added courier/postal charges on foreign purchases.

[Sam Spoons]

I think there may be a fundamental misunderstanding of how VAT works here. When buying from a foreign retailer, lets use Thomann as an example, you pay VAT either in Germany* or in the UK not in both. The VAT in Germany (which you paid before Brexit when you bought from Thomann) is 19%, the VAT in the UK is 20% so the difference is more or less negligible. But, since Brexit, there is UK duty to pay and a service charge charged by the carrier to collect the duty and VAT from you before handing over the goods. You didn't have to pay these charges before Brexit. FWIW most music related goods don't attract any duty if imported from Germany (though they might if they originated outside the EU). Most price rises have been due to exchange rates responding to the falling value of pound against the Dollar and/or the Euro.

* If/when Thomann register for UK VAT they will I believe, be able to export to the UK without the same problems as they are having during this transition period.

[wireman]

I made a purchase from Germany (not Thomann) at the start of the year, at the point I ordered the VAT was quoted at 19% but changed to 20% when the order was confirmed/shipped.

I'm sure it was covered already but note that the pre-paid VAT only applies for low value items <£135 where there will be no duty.

[Mike Stranks]

... and the long-awaited missing product has now arrived with T so they have dispatched.

Total 'extra' costs = £414.14, of which

£349.76 is VAT

£6.53 is Duty and

£57.85 is Brokerage Charges.

About the Brokerage... UPS have work to do to prepare the paperwork, send it to me, process my payment etc. Once people are involved in any process, costs are bound to be less than trivial. All in all I don't think the 'Brokerage' is unreasonable...

[Music Wolf]

£6.53 is Duty and

£57.85 is Brokerage Charges.

That doesn't feel right somehow. Duty is less than 0.5% whilst Brokerage is 2.7%, I would have expected that to be the otherway around.

[CS70]

I think there may be a fundamental misunderstanding of how VAT works here. When buying from a foreign retailer, lets use Thomann as an example, you pay VAT either in Germany* or in the UK not in both. The VAT in Germany (which you paid before Brexit when you bought from Thomann) is 19%, the VAT in the UK is 20% so the difference is more or less negligible. But, since Brexit, there is UK duty to pay and a service charge charged by the carrier to collect the duty and VAT from you before handing over the goods. You didn't have to pay these charges before Brexit. FWIW most music related goods don't attract any duty if imported from Germany (though they might if they originated outside the EU). Most price rises have been due to exchange rates responding to the falling value of pound against the Dollar and/or the Euro.

* If/when Thomann register for UK VAT they will I believe, be able to export to the UK without the same problems as they are having during this transition period.

The voice of sanity :clap:

Btw, apparently VAT was introduced in the UK as a condition to join the common market back in 1954.

You lucky b***ds, surely now that the UK has left the government will energetically proceed to remove it? :lol:

[Music Wolf]

Btw, apparently VAT was introduced in the UK as a condition to join the common market back in 1954.

1973 in the uk, we were late to arrive at the party and, it seems, the first to leave.

[Hugh Robjohns]

Btw, apparently VAT was introduced in the UK as a condition to join the common market back in 1973

It wasn't really an EU invention. We had a form of 'consumption tax' from 1940 called Purchase Tax. This scheme was tweaked slightly and rebranded as the EU-friendly VAT in 1973.

[uselessoldman]

Brokerage fee?? What to confirm you have ALREADY paid tax or not? I could understand it if they collected the TAX but when you have already paid for something why should you then pay again, JUST TO CONFIRM YOU HAVE PAID IT? Oh I bet the couriers love us ordering from abroad now? money grabbing %$^*$&(%^)^_&_

The issue here is not really new goods, although thats important in its own right, its the NEW VAT applicable items, presents World Wide and second hand items from the EU that before did not attract VAT. If my brother sends me something from the US as a present I have to pay VAT on it. But not if he send me some money through paypal. IF I buy something second hand on eBay from the EU I have to pay VAT on it, I never had to before !!

Just another Government scam to pay for Covid

[The Elf]

Buy from a UK company. You won't pay any of those hated fees, your tax will go into UK coffers and you'll get a UK power supply. Win, win, win.