Did Brexit kill AlieExpress?

[Psycho Sonny]

The trouble is AE sellers don't seem to be aware that AE are now collecting UK VAT during checkout. So some are continuing with the old practice marking the value low and no tax is shown on the declaration. The seller I chatted with said he had no way to add tax information to the declaration.

The AE Help Center still states that the buyer is responsible for all taxes & duties on receipt, that these are normally collected by the shipping company and are never covered by AE.

I don't think I would risk any high value items until the process is working better.

That's rubbish as you have to declare the value of the item you are shipping. Well you do in this country and America and china likley don't care but how else do the clear customs here without a value?

I just posted 2 items within the UK the other day and parcel force asked me to declare their value even though they aren't leaving the UK. It helps for insurance claims also it's a necessity usually to declare the value especially international shipping.

 

[Bug One]

I don't think I would risk any high value items until the process is working better.

I bought a router fom AliExpress. All worked perfectly smoothly. You pay the UK VAT amount at checkout, so there is no avoiding paying the correct amount of tax on an item. Doesn't matter what's written on the postage label.

The seller doesn't care that you're in the UK, nor has to worry about our tax arrangements. Ali Express deal with that. The seller gets their payment minus the UK tax amount.

As a consumer it's a sad to loose a method of buying products on the cheap - however it's very hard to argue against this being right. My only concern is whether Ali Experess are forwarding all of the collected money to the UK HMRC.

 

[Bug One]

:/

 

[IT Troll]

That's rubbish as you have to declare the value of the item you are shipping.

The value is declared, but the tax information is not included. The seller shipping the item doesn’t necessarily know what AE have collected during checkout.

Doesn't matter what's written on the postage label.

How will UK customs know that tax has already been paid or if it still needs to be collected?

 

[Psycho Sonny]

The value is declared, but the tax information is not included. The seller shipping the item doesn’t necessarily know what AE have collected during checkout.

How will UK customs know that tax has already been paid or if it still needs to be collected?

Surely if I'm paying UK vat it goes to the seller? The seller then pays this to customs as part of the shipping?

In your case it sounds like BS. They took the customs money you paid. Declared the value lower and pocketed the VAT.

So when you queried it they had to feed you some rubbish to make you go away.

 

[Kenai]

Surely if I'm paying UK vat it goes to the seller? The seller then pays this to customs as part of the shipping?

In this case it falls on the 'online marketplace', which is AliExpress themselves, to collect the VAT and pay it to HMRC.

Different if dealing directly with independent sellers not through an online marketplace, in those cases the seller themselves is responsible for doing it.

All of the above subject to under/over £135 valuations which also affect whether it's done at source or at import.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

In this case it falls on the 'online marketplace', which is AliExpress themselves, to collect the VAT and pay it to HMRC.

Different if dealing directly with independent sellers not through an online marketplace, in those cases the seller themselves is responsible for doing it.

All of the above subject to under/over £135 valuations which also affect whether it's done at source or at import.

Didn't realise that also affected companies outwith Europe.

I wonder why they are declaring the value lower then? Possibly due to AliExpress fees.

 

[Kenai]

Didn't realise that also affected companies outwith Europe.

I wonder why they are declaring the value lower then? Possibly due to AliExpress fees.

It affects all imports / sales outside the UK, it wasn't really a 'not in the EU anymore' change, even though it coincided.

As for why they mark low value still - maybe to avoid the buyer having to pay customs duties, which wouldn't necessarily be collected by AliExpress, they'll only deal with VAT.

 

[IT Troll]

I wonder why they are declaring the value lower then? Possibly due to AliExpress fees.

Fees are based on the marketplace price which has already been paid. The marketplace sellers are not necessarily aware of what AE are now doing for UK sales. So they are mistakenly continuing with their old practice of declaring the value low. This also means the tax information is not then being declared correctly on the package. AE may eventually pay the tax to HMRC, but the current setup is not helping with customs clearance.

In short, there is a disconnect between what AE are doing to meet the new import requirements and how the numerous independent marketplace sellers fulfil their orders.

 

[Diagro]

I had no issues with an iPad screen recently. Took a week to arrive with a listing advertised as 10 day delivery. As stated in the thread, vat and customs stuff is paid in advance so you pay a chunk on top of listed prices.

customs stuff isn't paid afaik

 

[jpaul]

board is not available at banggood ? since they may have eu warehouse(with duty&vat embedded in price) , and I thought post brexit imports had less scrutiny atm.

otherwise aliexpress, I thought there was a trade-off where non china post posting , might cost more but come through dhl with lower inspection costs than default parcel force say.

 

[Malevolence]

board is not available at banggood ? since they may have eu warehouse(with duty&vat embedded in price) , and I thought post brexit imports had less scrutiny atm.

otherwise aliexpress, I thought there was a trade-off where non china post posting , might cost more but come through dhl with lower inspection costs than default parcel force say.

The bot is glitching again.

 

[Thekwango]

The bot is glitching again.

Probably lost connection to its host device.

 

[Monkeynut]

Probably lost connection to its host device.

Its host device is still stuck in customs as the seller only declared $6.

 

[Semple]

The bot is glitching again.

Knowing the content of his post, it will have been in reply to another AliExpress thread. No idea why it ended up in here though.

 

[jpaul]

Knowing the content of his post, it will have been in reply to another AliExpress thread. No idea why it ended up in here though.

full marks - versus the three stooges.

 

[Scougar]

China still abusing the postal assistance as they are claiming to be a 'developing' country /facepalm.

 

[Nasher]

Yep just like how they keep printing more money to intentionally keep their exchange rate low. Creating basically slave labour to sell to the rest of the world.

 

[Roadrunner_668]

Well I tried to buy from Ali again recentry and what I bought got stopped and customs and they refunded me so that's great...

 

[Hagar]

Never mind, the Houthis may just blow it all up.