Play.com and VAT

AVgeek

Just a heads up, don't know if this was already posted but couldn't find a thread. Got a letter this morning from Revenue charging me for VAT and handling on a DVD box set purchased from Play.com.

I had thought that purchasing from Play was above board but seemingly after talking to Revenue because Play ship from Jersey through the UK and pay UK VAT, the Gov are getting browned off and want Play to pay Irish VAT when posting to Ireland. The woman told me they've been told to stop most items and send out the charge for VAT (including a 5euro handling fee). When they receive the money they'll send out the packages.

Anyone else have any hassle?

rubadub

No, that is worrying. I have heard of people being stung from the US but never play. How much was the value listed on the item. They can charge duty and vat on the postage cost too, but I think this is hidden by play.

They will only do it if it is worth their while, they can charge you once it is about about ~€22 or ~€45 if marked as a gift. THey can only process so many per day so will usually go for the expensive items, around xmas there will be millions of post so you stand a better chance of not being charged.

AVgeek

They charged me 8.81 + 5euro handling for a 42 euro boxset. Seemingly they've only been told to crack down recently and she said that there was thousands of items in already.

subway

i receoved 15 dvds from play last week with no hassle.
i would guess that since play announce the price on the packaging that you were legally "stung"

there is no tax on items below £18 at the minute,
however there is apparently huge pressure to stop the fulfilment industry from using jersey as a tax haven.
as such there is probably a clmapdown being enforced on items over the 18£ threshold which would have been ignored in the past.

the threshold is planned to be lowered to 7£ which will pretty much kill off play from what i understand.

halenger

Well I guess one learns something new...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_dependency

Wikipedia Article wrote:

None form a part of the United Kingdom, being separate jurisdictions, nor do they form part of the European Union.

Damn it to hell.

testicle

If they are paying UK VAT, you should not have to pay IE VAT. If you do, you an reclaim the UK VAT that they paid.

byte

This does not make good reading

But, as the items already have UK VAT paid, I thought it would be OK, what with UK being in the EU and all. So much for an open market.

subway

jersey doesnt pay uk vat,
thats why eveything is cheap.

whitetrash

Damn, I just ordered a load of Wii stuff from play.

kensutz

There is a new company hired by the revenue to pick up packages coming in from foreign countries and to send out letters for people to pay the extra on the items.

Ancient1

kensutz wrote:

There is a new company hired by the revenue to pick up packages coming in from foreign countries and to send out letters for people to pay the extra on the items.

Do you have a source for this information?

kensutz

Yeah a phone call I made because of a play asia mix up

andyeire

just got a demand from customs regarding a PS2 game from Play .I rang revenue and she gave me the same story as is in the posts above .She said that until Play start paying Irish VAT they will stop every Play item above 22 euro and send customs bill to customer.She basicly said that all small packets coming from Jersey are checked on eby one.She also said that they are after cdwow HK and all packets from Hong Kong go through the same checking process.Play apparently pay VAT to the UK revenue but have refused to negoiate with Irish revenue hence this "new policy".So cdwow.ie seem to be the only option as they post from Luxemburg.

drusilla_rb

And it applies to Blah and Sendit too, BAH

Brian017

B*****ks :mad:

r3nu4l

Well that's a pain inthe butt. I live and work in the UK so you would think I wouldn't mind but I'm ordering Christmas presents from Play and sending them home to Dublin so I won't have to carry them in my luggage.

...wonder if I get a letter from Irish Revenue asking for money can I claim that they I'm sending them to myself in Ireland because my house in the UK will be empty over the Christmas and that I will be bringing them back to England?

jackdaw

what about other sites ? like sendit ? will this affect that , is sendit.com based in jersey ?

jackdaw

interesting i just checked, the jersey sendit only delivers orders to EU from jersey if they are 18 sterling or under....
could be a loophole

says it at the very bottom of the site...

byte

subway wrote:

jersey doesnt pay uk vat,
thats why eveything is cheap.

The OP stated that he was told by the Revenue that Play.com ship through the UK and pay UK VAT.

byte

andyeire wrote:

So cdwow.ie seem to be the only option as they post from Luxemburg.

Can't see how that'll make a difference. If they won't allow stuff with UK VAT paid, then they wont allow stuff with Lux VAT paid?

It'll be like motor VRT on internet shopping.. :mad:

EDIT: I realise now, Customs are only checking stuff from HK and Jersey, not Luxembourg!

andyeire

byte wrote:

Can't see how that'll make a difference. If they won't allow stuff with UK VAT paid, then they wont allow stuff with Lux VAT paid?

byte wrote:

I may be wrong but from talking to the lady from customs Play have an agreement that they pay vat to British revenue but refuse to come to same agreement with Irish revenue.As far as cdwow.ie goes because the shipment originates from an EU country there is no vat issue.AFAIR the only thing you cant ship into Ireland by post from another EU countries is cigs and booze .I think the main issue with Jersey is they are in the UK but NOT in the EU.

subway

byte wrote:

The OP stated that he was told by the Revenue that Play.com ship through the UK and pay UK VAT.

i think youve got the wrong end of the stick,
play ship from jersey
they pay vat to the uk when shipping to the uk
they dont pay vat to anyone when shipping to ireland

they are not in the uk, they are the channel islands.

up until recently they didnt pay vat to the uk government either,
but they have now come to an agreement with the uk.
they arent coming to an agreement with the irish goverment as we dont have anything to hold over them the way the uk could regarding trade etc.

looks like our governemt just wants to make sure we dont get anything cheap so now we pay the vat which more than likely covers the cost of the staff who check the packages.

Stokolan

jackdaw wrote:

interesting i just checked, the jersey sendit only delivers orders to EU from jersey if they are 18 sterling or under....
could be a loophole

says it at the very bottom of the site...

I hope so as I am waiting for Gears of war from there :mad: I thought i would have had it by now.

Our man in Havana

This will kill off online shopping for DVD's.

I would assume that this policy will also affect amazon.com from the states?

samo

On Amazon.com I ordered Lost Season 2 from them (pre-order) for about $39 and it never arrived when it was shipped early September. I emailed them and they sent a replacment copy and it had a 0.00 value on the label which arrived a few days later.

Last week local postie told me there was a parcel in the sorting office which had a customs charge on it - lo and behold it was the 1st copy of Lost with a €14 customs charge on it and it had been stopepd since 18th Sept :eek: but the person behind the counter just gave it to me and didnt ask for the money.

Thats the 1st time anything I've ever got online has been hit for customs. Bit worried now about the Play/Sendit thing.

Malmedicine

samo wrote:

On Amazon.com I ordered Lost Season 2 from them (pre-order) for about $39 and it never arrived when it was shipped early September. I emailed them and they sent a replacment copy and it had a 0.00 value on the label which arrived a few days later.

Last week local postie told me there was a parcel in the sorting office which had a customs charge on it - lo and behold it was the 1st copy of Lost with a €14 customs charge on it and it had been stopepd since 18th Sept :eek: but the person behind the counter just gave it to me and didnt ask for the money.

.

You lucky bugger 2 copies of lost for $39 dollars this should have been posted in bargain alerts!:D

fdevine

I order stuff from 7dayshop.com, based in Guernsey, all the time. AFAIK anything under stg£18 in value is exempt from VAT. Anything over that, VAT is charged at the UK rate. Surely if you're paying UK VAT, they cant charge IE VAT as well??

Previous poster mentioned a missing boxset, which I have also encountered.
Must check with the Post Office. Havent received any letter though.....

jackdaw

Hey, I emailed the book depository and they say all items are posted from
Gloucester, UK so this wont be a problem with customs then no ?

EU free trade etc...

indiewindy

testicle wrote:

If they are paying UK VAT, you should not have to pay IE VAT. If you do, you an reclaim the UK VAT that they paid.

You are wrong. Play dont pay any UK VAT as they are availing of the €22 exemption. Also if VAT was to paid like you have to do with amazon you have to pay the Irish rate and you cant claim it back unless you are vat registered. Basically only buy cds or dvds from shops that pack
individually

books are exempt from VAT so no charge

andyeire

indiewindy wrote:

You are wrong. Play dont pay any UK VAT as they are availing of the €22 exemption.

Play do pay VAT to the UK revenue when the price is above 22 euro and the item is posted to the UK mainland.According to customs they have refused to come to the same arraingment with Irish revenue .When they get an order from Ireland they pocket the lot

RuggieBear

Woo hoo!!!

The Rip off Republic reigns supreme...:rolleyes:

Our man in Havana

Safest option is to order from amazon.co.uk unless the value is below €22.

alanceltic

Lads look at the bigger picture, it not the state thats ripping you off its PLAY.com, in light of the fact that EU taxes arent harmonised and wont ever be each country has the right to charge whatever vat they wish....i used to work for an online retailer so have some knowledge of this minefield.

The irish govt has the right to charge vat on all goods and services supplied within this state, its perfectly OK for anybody to send NON contraband goods but they should be declared for IRISH vat (and duty if appropriate, eg cigs and booze) regardless if there has already been vat charged in another jurisdiction, the govt wont normally go after goods shipped from the UK but they could as these goods only have 17.5% vat paid (to the Uk govt) when the localised vat should be 21% paid to the irish govt as the supply of goods has occoured in the irish state and the irish govt is loosing valuable tax revenues which it would ordinarily gain from a high street sale. I think a common sense approach has been adopted up to now with EU countries as its swings & roundabouts with goods imported & exported (the flip side is an irish supplier charging irish vat on a supply of goods to the UK for example) but the thing is if Play are exporting from a jurisdiction where there is no local vat (as with cdwow hk) PLAY get to keep the full price as they dont have to give 21% of the sale price to anybody and pocket this amount, I wouldnt have a problem with not paying the govt this vat if they were passing it on to the customer but they arent so fcuk them.

On another issue I would be interested to hear what the credit card companies have to say if you were to raise a chargeback request on the grounds that the contract wasnt fulfilled, ie you never got the goods, this seems fair grounds in my opinion to get a full refund via your card issuing bank and if this happens quite regularly im sure the card companies wouldnt waste too much time telling PLAY to get their gaff in order or be blacklisted from shipping to Ireland.... Im all for getting stuff on the nett and promoting ecommerce and even have a few orders in the pipeline but I think Play are creaming a nice little earner at Irish customers & the Irish govts expense, typical imperilastic attitude if you ask me, might just find myself a new online supplier for all things DVD/GAME

subway

alanceltic wrote:

Lads look at the bigger picture, it not the state thats ripping you off its PLAY.com, in light of the fact that EU taxes arent harmonised and wont ever be each country has the right to charge whatever vat they wish....i used to work for an online retailer so have some knowledge of this minefield.

The irish govt has the right to charge vat on all goods and services supplied within this state, its perfectly OK for anybody to send NON contraband goods but they should be declared for IRISH vat (and duty if appropriate, eg cigs and booze) regardless if there has already been vat charged in another jurisdiction, the govt wont normally go after goods shipped from the UK but they could as these goods only have 17.5% vat paid (to the Uk govt) when the localised vat should be 21% paid to the irish govt as the supply of goods has occoured in the irish state and the irish govt is loosing valuable tax revenues which it would ordinarily gain from a high street sale. I think a common sense approach has been adopted up to now with EU countries as its swings & roundabouts with goods imported & exported (the flip side is an irish supplier charging irish vat on a supply of goods to the UK for example) but the thing is if Play are exporting from a jurisdiction where there is no local vat (as with cdwow hk) PLAY get to keep the full price as they dont have to give 21% of the sale price to anybody and pocket this amount, I wouldnt have a problem with not paying the govt this vat if they were passing it on to the customer but they arent so fcuk them.

On another issue I would be interested to hear what the credit card companies have to say if you were to raise a chargeback request on the grounds that the contract wasnt fulfilled, ie you never got the goods, this seems fair grounds in my opinion to get a full refund via your card issuing bank and if this happens quite regularly im sure the card companies wouldnt waste too much time telling PLAY to get their gaff in order or be blacklisted from shipping to Ireland.... Im all for getting stuff on the nett and promoting ecommerce and even have a few orders in the pipeline but I think Play are creaming a nice little earner at Irish customers & the Irish govts expense, typical imperilastic attitude if you ask me, might just find myself a new online supplier for all things DVD/GAME

there ripping us off by charging us less?
i like that logic....

what do you mean by imperialstic atitude?
that the brits are raping our land with cheap dvds?

holly_johnson

This thread explains a lot...
I am trying to buy some items from Play in sterling (it's cheaper than buying in euro even after conversion), and when I go to the checkout it says it can only deliver to a UK address.
When I place the order in Euro, it's fine!
I've emailed them but no reply. What a load of rubbish!

Does anyone have any good alternative sites that should be ok to order from?

byte

subway wrote:

i think youve got the wrong end of the stick,
play ship from jersey
they pay vat to the uk when shipping to the uk
they dont pay vat to anyone when shipping to ireland

they are not in the uk, they are the channel islands.

up until recently they didnt pay vat to the uk government either,
but they have now come to an agreement with the uk.
they arent coming to an agreement with the irish goverment as we dont have anything to hold over them the way the uk could regarding trade etc.

looks like our governemt just wants to make sure we dont get anything cheap so now we pay the vat which more than likely covers the cost of the staff who check the packages.

Ah right. Now I getcha! Thanks for clearing that up for me.

nlgbbbblth

are they retaining the packages and sending the letters first?

or sending the letter afterwards?

edit: I see they're hanging on till you pay them.

subway

yep,
and its causing massive delays for play deliverys.
i usually get my items about 2-3 days after the "your item is posted mail"
im waiting over almost 2 weeks on some books

jackdaw

they can't hold books though ? books have 0% VAT no ??

subway

im guessing that anything comes in from play.com is getting redirected to the "checking company"
once its confirmed that VAT isnt paybale the item is forwarded.

seems like part of a tactic to annoy plays users into not using them.

event

does anyone know if its the same with cdwow.ie?

blastman

Ar$es!! I only just ordered something from another Jersey crowd last night before I saw this. And the cost was over 18 sterling too, unusually for me. OK, Play might be taking the mick with the Irish government, but if we weren't being stiffed so much in the first place, they wouldn't be so popular here.

holly_johnson

I'm worried about stuff I ordered from Amazon in the States too. Hopefully I might slip through the net!

rubadub

Dunno where this £18 is coming from? maybe UK law? it is €22 here, though I get plenty of stuff openly stated to be worth more and have no bother. The play packages are easily identified. 2 things bother me about play & cd-wow etc, and they could sort it.
1. if you use a discount code it is not taken into account on the price stated on the package, so the price is nearly always higher, (I trust everybody uses the always available vouchers on cd-wow at least.)

2. "free postage", this is bull****, does the postman deliver it out of the goodness of their heart???, the post is obviously included into the price, so again the product is valued artificially high. If they did the old ebay seller scam, i.e. charge €50 shipping & handling and €1 for the item you would have less hassle with customs. The customs can charge you duty and vat on the value of the goods AND the stated shipping costs. BUT play and cdwow never disclose the shipping costs on the packages! so they cannot charge. Even if they did disclose it they could have a massive "handling" fee so they could fix it so your shipping and item combined is never over €22.
It is in their own interest to do this and I cannot see how it would be against the law, unless below cost selling is illegal in jersey or something.

andyeire

event wrote:

does anyone know if its the same with cdwow.ie?

cdwow.ie are ok they post from Luxemburg

robo

holly_johnson wrote:

I'm worried about stuff I ordered from Amazon in the States too. Hopefully I might slip through the net!

Well I got caught by them a month ago and so did a friend of mine. They are clamping down thats for sure :mad:

samo

andyeire wrote:

cdwow.ie are ok they post from Luxemburg

Not everything from .ie is posted from Luxembourg - some stuff comes from Singapore and Hong Kong as well unfortunately.

Scheherazade

If somebody sends you an Amazon.com package from the States or Play.com from Jersey as a gift, they shouldn't be showing the price of the item on the package, right?

So is the tax bill sent to the person who bought the gift, or do you have to pay tax even if you weren't paying?

If you don't have to pay, can you send gifts to yourself?

Our man in Havana

The Revenue are well aware of the gift scam.

RobertFoster

So, it's best to get all Christmas presents from CD Wow at this stage is it? Given that Play stuff is being delayed and you're likely to get charged customs?

Our man in Havana

But you equally liable to get caught by CD Wow aswell.