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VAT Tax on purchases from outside EU |
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Given's zimmerframe 
500 Club la la la 
Joined: 03 Apr 2016 Status: Offline Points: 620 |
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 Topic: VAT Tax on purchases from outside EUPosted: 17 Dec 2022 at 3:19pm |
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I recently purchased an item from canada on ebay. I paid an extra tax fee on top of the original price and shipping when I purchased the item. When the item arrived in Ireland I had to pay tax again to get it released, I contacted ebay and they are refunding me the original tax amount paid. They claim it was the sellers duty to indicate that I had already paid the tax. If the seller had actually done that would I receive the item directly and would the Irish government/customs actually claim the money from ebay? I know why ebay and similar companies do this as it allows them to take a higher percentage of the overall transaction price as their fee and keep the tax money when people are double charged and dont bother reclaiming as I did. Does anyone have any knowledge of Irish customs reclaiming from ebay etc?
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Bandwagon
Ray Houghton 
Joined: 07 Feb 2021 Location: Dublin Status: Online Points: 3343 |
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Posted: 17 Dec 2022 at 4:29pm |
By the sounds of it eBay cocked up. Given you paid tax at checkout the seller would have been using eBays global shipping programme. With the GSP the seller just has to post their item to eBay and they look after the rest for them. They're the ones responsible for posting the item onto you and looking after customs and the paper work involved. The whole point of it is they have it pre cleared before it gets here so it can be delivered without going through customs here. They obviously didn't have the paper work in order and thus it ended up going through customs here again by accident. |
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Given's zimmerframe
500 Club la la la
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Posted: 17 Dec 2022 at 4:42pm |
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It seems to be a common problem though judging from all the forum posts I was reading
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Bandwagon
Ray Houghton
Joined: 07 Feb 2021 Location: Dublin Status: Online Points: 3343 |
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Posted: 17 Dec 2022 at 6:08pm |
Oh it is, I've had it happen a dozen times. Its only a good service for sellers on eBay not having to deal with the hassle of custom declarations at the PO and eBay take all liability for the items once they receive them. Theres no real advantage for buyers, its supposed to be quicker with the customs pre declared but its usually the same anyway with the added hassle when something like this goes wrong. Sure I've emailed them a dozen times about them illegally charging VAT and Duty on items sold from the North and they still haven't fixed it. They insist because its part of the UK that its applicable  |
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Given's zimmerframe
500 Club la la la
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Posted: 17 Dec 2022 at 6:17pm |
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Is it even legal for them to collect tax on behalf of the Irish Government? If it is surely the government must have agreed to it?
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notpropaganda73
Liam Brady
Joined: 17 Feb 2016 Location: Donegal Status: Offline Points: 1057 |
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Posted: 18 Dec 2022 at 10:30am |
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in general companies are collecting VAT on behalf of the government and then as part of their VAT returns they will be in either a refund position or payable position - eBay will most likely have an Irish entity (and a UK entity) which has a VAT return that they'll submit to Revenue and then Revenue will lift the money out of their bank or deposit it depending on the position
Wouldn't like to be their accountants (or auditors) mind you. not 100% clear on the VAT process for this sort of company which is acting as an intermediary rather than the direct seller/buyer.
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Bandwagon
Ray Houghton
Joined: 07 Feb 2021 Location: Dublin Status: Online Points: 3343 |
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Posted: 18 Dec 2022 at 2:44pm |
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Its mandatory for all companies trading over a certain threshold both EU and non EU to register for an Irish VAT number and collect VAT on behalf of the government.
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Given's zimmerframe wrote: