Being Charged Irish VAT rate from English based company

BravoMike · 07-03-2009 07:25PM #1

I was recently in the process of purchasing a product from Maplins website. I have an account on the website giving my details as living in Ireland. The website is based in England as the address is Maplin.co.uk and the prices are given in Pound Sterling. WhenI went to buy the product I found that I was being charged at the Irish VAT rate instead of the English rate. Is this legal/allowed and also are companies allowed to charge VAT on shipping costs?

copacetic · 07-03-2009 07:30PM

if you sell a certain amount into Ireland you have to charge and pay the Irish VAT rate, plenty of online companies do the same thing.

DublinWriter · 07-03-2009 07:42PM

Yup...DABS do a similar thing too. If you are a European company and do more than 100K trade pa in Ireland, then you are legally obliged to set up a ltd company here.

Maplins trade as an Irish Registered Limited company here, therefore they will charge Irish rates of VAT, so they are just doing what they are legally obliged to do.

BravoMike · 07-03-2009 07:43PM

I found it unusual as I went to a few other English based websites and went through the purchasing procedure, gave my details as being from Ireland yet I was still charged at 15%. To be honest I thought it was Maplin trying to rip us off here in Ireland. Just as an example one of their products online costs 323.71 Euro, from any shop here in Ireland 477.99 Euro!!

Dannyboy83 · 08-03-2009 01:31AM

copacetic wrote: »

if you sell a certain amount into Ireland you have to charge and pay the Irish VAT rate, plenty of online companies do the same thing.

Thanks for that.

Any idea what the amount is and how its calculated?

e.g. 25% of gross or something?

Being Charged Irish VAT rate from English based company

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