RCMart (& Others) now charging 20% VAT to UK

[Gazzalene 171]

On ‎1‎/‎2‎/‎2021 at 1:22 PM, futureworks said:

Basically, this looks like a new era for UK folks buying internationally, i.e. nothing can come in ‘under the radar’ from now on when bought from a store (inc eBay),, so the opportunity for example  to buy kits and parts from the Far East at lower rates (accepting that shipping has gone up a lot in the last decade anyway) has, it seems, now gone, which is a shame. 

I stopped buying from overseas a long time ago ,when i was into heli`s big time.

For me nothing ever got in under the radar. That was fine BUT what got me was the random costs i was getting for handling, it varied from courier to courier. Sometimes even the duty was off compared to another for like purchase. I felt i was getting ripped off. Bought the odd bit from china on ebay BUT always get the £12 handling fee from RM. I tend to look for the Chinese sellers that ship to a "English drop site?????" not as cheap BUT at least i can get the servo`s i want BUT these sellers seem to have died down now.

I find buying overseas for me was never really cheaper,so i buy from the OR Europe (not know) only used to buy from overseas for stuff not available in the UK and lets face it we don't get much here!!!!!!

[Jutty 42]

I’ve done a quick comparison. I just bought a TT-02R from a uk seller for £135 shipped. Rcmart want £146 shipped for the same kit and no doubt a few weeks delivery. I’m sure they’d list it as £146 value despite the shipping being £35 of that and they charge vat on shipping. 
 

Ah well, it’ll drive business to UK shops. If only they’d stock the rarer stuff that the overseas guys do. 
 

edit. Hilarious. I just did another check. Tamiya hop up part $45. Shipping $37 for a 46 gram part ! (I couldn’t select cheaper shipping) total inc vat $100

£45 from model sport. 

 

[nowinaminute 2815]

7 hours ago, Gazzalene said:

For me nothing ever got in under the radar. That was fine BUT what got me was the random costs i was getting for handling, it varied from courier to courier. Sometimes even the duty was off compared to another for like purchase. I felt i was getting ripped off. Bought the odd bit from china on ebay BUT always get the £12 handling fee from RM. I tend to look for the Chinese sellers that ship to a "English drop site?????" not as cheap BUT at least i can get the servo`s i want BUT these sellers seem to have died down now.

I've honestly only been stung twice in my life and only once for RC stuff which happened to be this month.

Most of the stuff I got was quite cheap ie: £50 or less. A lot of that was under the £15 threshold anyway and pretty much everything else the seller would mark a lower value or mark as gift. 

I've never purchased kits from the likes of RCmart. The only larger stuff I have got is Chinese RTRs via the likes of Banggood and Gearbest. When you selected a shipping method like "European priority" it would somehow turn up with no fees attached, seemed like they found some kind of loophole where they used Europe as a waypoint but the UK courier only saw the parcel as a Europe to Europe delivery so didn't charge any VAT or duty.

It is what it is I suppose. You can't grumble too much about not being able to cheat the system although it is a blow when it comes to all the cheap sub £15 stuff, I certainly buy a lot of stuff under that price like motors, servos, ESCs, dampers, screws and other hardware, bearings, driveshafts and so on and so on. But then again, 20% of £15 is hardly going to end the world.

There are normally various loopholes but with the bigger sites that will be charging the VAT on behalf of the smaller vendors like Ebay and Aliexpress etc, I don't think there will be much potential for that.  But then again, I did notice on ebay that with some sellers, they will charge an additional 20% and on other items it says "price includes 20% VAT" I wonder if that's down to whether the sellers have enrolled to pay the VAT themselves or not? And I wonder if perhaps it's quite easy for a seller to say they have registered with HMRC even if they actually haven't. That would leave them free to either keep the price the same or pocket 20%?

RCMart is already charging VAT and postage prices are currently ridiculous but that aspect will hopefully go back to normal in time, possibly it takes time for carriers to prepare for the new regulations too. I'm not sure it will ever be cheaper to buy kits again but stuff like spares and CVA damper kits may well still prove to be cheaper from there. There's lots of stuff you simply can't get anywhere else too so hopefully the postage will go back to normal.

The last time I checked, Banggood and Gearbest were not yet charging an extra 20% but that could change any time. They both still offer "tariff insurance" which is strange as they should well know that there shouldn't be anything to pay on the customers end for purchases under £135 from now on. It does show you how confident they were about dodging tariffs for items of all values until now though. I've had stuff costing in the £200 region from both sites and not had a sniff of a fee. Considering that trick used to rely on sending stuff to Europe first and then to the UK though, I think that might be about to end.

[mud4fun 1696]

A few pounds difference in prices doesn't really bother me, the main reason I buy from RC Mart is for items that are simply not available anywhere else regardless of price.

This last year I have bought loads of Avante2001/Egress parts from them as I couldn't find them in the UK (or at least not for anything resembling 'normal' prices). Even when paying import duty, postage etc it still worked out cheaper and I was more than happy with their service and relatively quick delivery.

I actually only got stung once this year for customs, oddly on one of the cheaper orders! The customs charge didn't bother me but the stupidly long 4 week delay while my package was sat in customs in Coventry WAS very annoying as I wanted those parts urgently and it was the only order from RC Mart that I'd paid for rapid delivery on........ to add insult to injury,  another order I had placed TWO WEEKS later arrived before the 'rapid delivery' and was higher value but sailed straight through without being held by customs..... complete luck of the draw I guess?

[TWINSET 1793]

We're proper cattle-trucked;

 

A US supplier of 3D Print supplies shipping from China, from whom I bought stuff in December;

 

An HK camera supplier adding a lot to US $ price to ship to UK;

 

[nowinaminute 2815]

Has anyone recieved anything they ordered after the 1st yet?

I just had a couple of small packages arrive from China that I ordered on the 2nd.

The only differences I could see were that the customs labels didn't have a box ticked to denote if it was a gift/merchandise etc.

Surely it can't be that simple? That would mean you could just send anything with a declared value under £135 and it would just slip through because it's assumed the VAT was paid at the other end?

Too early to say anything for sure yet as they may have just been sent in the conventional way and slipped through.

It would be annoying if they had a loophole but ebay/ali etc continued you put an unavoidable blanket charge on everything on behalf of the the sellers.

Oh well, have to remember we aren't entitled to rule flexing even if we have benefitted from it for many years.

I'm still annoyed they are scrapping the waiver for sub £15 items though.

 

[Nwc100 462]

Ordered some stuff from Japan a few days ago, the only thing about it so far is the tracking info just says unknown sender, all the other items I get from Japan have always stated the sender, I receive a lot both personal and work related from there and it's the first time I've seen that, it always has said the sender before.

I'm quite curious now to see how it comes.

On another note I'm after some items from Tamico and can see a nice earner for someone willing to forward a few packages from Germany to the UK, a little beer money always helps!

[Problemchild 2149]

All I can say is well done to everyone who voted brexit for messing up something that worked well

JJ

[Superluminal 3750]

I must have missed Japan and Hong Kong being in the European Union.

[svenb 3759]

6 minutes ago, Superluminal said:

I must have missed Japan and Hong Kong being in the European Union.

Agreed 

[moffman 5746]

39 minutes ago, Problemchild said:

All I can say is well done to everyone who voted brexit for messing up something that worked well

JJ

Ah but don't forget we have got back our sovereignty🙄...........did we ever lose our sovereignty?.......oh and our passports are a lovely shade of blue now (not that they are much use to us at the moment) so the next time you get mugged off with extra taxes/duty just remember those lovely advantages we now have!!!👍

[Problemchild 2149]

3 hours ago, Superluminal said:

I must have missed Japan and Hong Kong being in the European Union.

But the extant trade deal with the EU meant anything coming to the EU was understood 

the UK trade deal Is still relatively new and clearly isn’t understood yet 

tbh I was talking more about Tamico in Germany

3 hours ago, moffman said:

Ah but don't forget we have got back our sovereignty🙄...........did we ever lose our sovereignty?.......oh and our passports are a lovely shade of blue now (not that they are much use to us at the moment) so the next time you get mugged off with extra taxes/duty just remember those lovely advantages we now have!!!👍

Nope - I was still British, we had controls over borders, had free trade, I could go work in Europe, were key in crowd funded research into many things, had Europe wide police networks etc etc 

all this “people will still buy Bmw cars” was true, just 20% less money in the UK purses

JJ

[Toolmaker72 507]

 

4 hours ago, svenb said:

Agreed 

Being part of European market meant deal outside of Europe too.  Now the U.K. has to set up all its own deals literally.   Being part of the eu meant certain countries were not traded with as it may have upset the French or Germans regarding fair trading.  No American cars for instance as they didn’t meet European standards yet American cars have some of the most stringent emission controls.  Governments are not allowed to back failing industries or give them money to allow a cheaper product and hence make more money.  I’m sure the French has bailed out it’s car manufacturers plenty of time and put extra tariffs on cars not French.  Put into a little perspective the crap deal that’s just been agreed is the biggest for the eu ever.  Amazing really for just a tiny island nation really.  I think there are new opportunities to be had,  read the new laws and play the new game.  Saying it doesn’t suit is I think being lazy.  Those businesses will fail.  

[Nwc100 462]

12 hours ago, Superluminal said:

I must have missed Japan and Hong Kong being in the European Union.

I don't think anyone stated either have been or will be in the EU! 

I am sure that some of these businesses will start changing the CN22 forms to benefit the customer, if it's sent as a $5 gift there is more chance for it to slip through customs,compared to the packages labelled with $100 dollars of RC parts or JP¥.

Is it an opportunity for some of them to sell more, absolutely, there is next to no availability of parts or kits from the EU currently and those that will sell can't find a courier to move it.

I think it's a great opportunity to grow a business and word soon travels that so and so is sending items "undercover" and so people potentially put up with the longer delivery time.

I generally receive 4 -5 bits of post from Japan a week, predominantly of samples and order quite a few bits to come each month as well, my point was more about whether the forms would still be completed correctly or not, because if I'm not having to pay as many charges every week then it's happy days!

[rich_f 233]

13 hours ago, Superluminal said:

I must have missed Japan and Hong Kong being in the European Union

 

12 hours ago, svenb said:

Agreed

It is very naive to believe that the UK leaving the EU only has effects on interactions with countries within the EU. 

When the UK was in the EU, it meant that other countries traded with an EU country, for whom all rules are the same. 

Now, they trade with just another country with its own rules. They now have to jump through hoops to sell to us, and some smaller ones with limited business with the UK (remember, before we left, we were lumped in with the rest of the EU, providing a bigger customer base and more incentive to jump through EU hoops) aren't bothering due to associated costs/effort, so have instead stopped selling to the UK. 

So far I've only seen negative impacts of leaving the EU. I realise it is early on, but all I can say is I hope things get better.

[Problemchild 2149]

Tried to order some $10 wheels from RCMart - $40 shipping as they will only send air freight.

decided to order from Tamico instead - they won’t ship to the UK at the moment because of this customs mess.

what level of effort are these companies gonna put in to fix a small % of their sales to the UK? 

very short sighted selfish single (mostly baseless) reasons for leaving the EU is making a mess of something that’s been refined and revised for decades.

such a shame 

just wait into the UK loses its funding and involvement in big development and research programmes. 
 

the loss of UK involvement in the European Galeleo GPS project is already costing the UK tax payer BIG 

JJ

[Superluminal 3750]

Slightly cheaper RC parts wasnt a good enough reason to stay in it either

[Problemchild 2149]

1 minute ago, Superluminal said:

Slightly cheaper RC parts wasnt a good enough reason to stay in it either

but that’s just one tiny tiny tiny part

but it extrapolates and beyond 

What’s better VFM - crowd funding or everyone doing their own same research?

JJ

[Superluminal 3750]

3 minutes ago, Problemchild said:

What’s better VFM - crowd funding or everyone doing their own same research?

JJ

But thats just one tiny tiny tiny part.

[Problemchild 2149]

Just now, Superluminal said:

But thats just one tiny tiny tiny part.

It’s not a big part but it’s not tiny tiny tiny though

about 14% (£1bn) in 2019

and about £22bn in regional development 

it’s costing the UK £5bn to replicate the Galileo programme

So it’s not big but it’s a lot of money just in that narrow area

but I’m sure the voters considered all these things when voting

my FIL voted to leave - he is annoyed that joining wasn’t what he wanted in the first place 

my step mum voted to leave - she has very robust reasons 

my dad voted to leave - purely on immigration

my friend voted leave - to stop the Syrian refugees 

but that’s democracy and I have no issue with that - just wish people took more interest in what they are actually voting for 

JJ

 

[Superluminal 3750]

42 minutes ago, Problemchild said:

but I’m sure the voters considered all these things when voting

There wasnt much point in considering all those things though because previously there wasnt any choice.

Crowd funding research on a whatever project - yeah sounds amazing.

Oh but you have to be part of an unelected political union that controls legislation on your agriculture, industry, laws, borders, taxation, trade etc etc etc without any powers to change it or vote in it - actually, think I will pass thanks.

[svenb 3759]

I'm in agreement with @Superluminal

I have nothing against our European friends and like to deal with them and on quite a few occasions on the forum. 

Several reasons I wanted out but the final nail in the coffin was when Teresa May couldn't deport a vile hate preaching terriost supporter out of the country, because of the "European Court of human rights". 

But I suppose this subject isn't really about this stuff it's all about Tamiya 👍

[Superluminal 3750]

I think the current issue with the VAT as being labelled as a "Brexit" issue is completely wrong. The issue is the rewriting of the VAT legislation by a muppet in the civil service thinking its easier/cheaper to put the admin of the VAT collection and payment on the vendor without considering the implications. But the difference now is that at least we can lobby our MPs, raise petitions, complain on forums etc etc to get it changed if needed which was never an option before. 

[rich_f 233]

1 hour ago, Superluminal said:

unelected

Members of European parliament are elected.

51 minutes ago, Superluminal said:

But the difference now is that at least we can lobby our MPs, raise petitions, complain on forums etc etc to get it changed if needed which was never an option before. 

You could lobby the MEPs before. 

1 hour ago, svenb said:

European Court of human rights

This is an entirely different entity to the European Union, and the UK is still part of it. 

 

53 minutes ago, Superluminal said:

I think the current issue with the VAT as being labelled as a "Brexit" issue is completely wrong. The issue is the rewriting of the VAT legislation by a muppet in the civil service thinking its easier/cheaper to put the admin of the VAT collection and payment on the vendor without considering the implications.

The simple fact is that if we hadn't left the European Union, the vat legislation wouldn't have needed rewriting, so you can see how brexit has been blamed. You're right though that whoever made the decision to let vendors sort the vat admin was short-sighted, or more likely they thought that the UK as a standalone nation was important enough that companies around the world, large and small, would be tripping over themselves trying to trade with us - so much that they wouldn't mind the extra effort and costs involved. I wonder what else they got/will get wrong. 

[Superluminal 3750]

6 minutes ago, rich_f said:

Members of European parliament are elected.

I dont recall voting for any of the Council members who are the ones that make and change the legislation and the commisioners are basically selected from preapproved stooges. Thus I could never any point in having MEPs as they could only ever be asked to vote on legislation that they had no control over being created or amended in the first place - Farage was ours for a number of years for all the difference he was able to make until the referendum.