Purchasing via Scotland and VAT charges!

[Calimachon]

I believe Scotland is now separate from the UK Government.  This led to an interesting telephone conversation with a retailer I use in Edinburgh, who by the way could sell snow to the Inuits!  I was purchasing a very expensive piece of software which has only just been released in Europe by an American/Swiss company.  The good news was that the software was now on special offer and I was saving £200.  The bad news was that the retailer did not know how he could take the VAT off the purchase.  He either did not know how, or, there was no facility to take it off and that there is a blanket charge for this tax, as a directive from the Common Market (European Market), whatever it is called these days.

As this retailer is an honest man and already knew that VAT should not be added to my purchase we agreed that I should receive various other items that I required for my hobby to the value of the VAT.  He also sent the software and the other goods to me free of charge.

Has anyone else experienced this problem when purchasing items from outside the UK but from within the jurisdiction of the EU?

I seem to recall purchasing something on ebay once that I was forced to bear the cost of VAT for, or just do without the item.  As it was something I really could not do without I bore the cost of the VAT.  I hate to think this may be the thin end of the wedge and that, as someone once said on this forum, we will eventually be treated like a County of the UK with all the resultant erosion of our rights as a Crown Dependancy!

Can anyone throw any light on this subject?

Cali

[Dundee]

I order items from the US which does mean I pay a large amount on P&P this was not to bad when DHL? did it but the firm changed its courier to FedEx and the amount almost doubled so much for progress! When they took over I had a bill for 50 quid for VAT, to which I knew I was not liable to, a woman phoned up threatening legal action if I did not pay, she tried saying all sorts of things to make me pay, and I replied that it was illegal for her to charge me VAT, she said she would look into it and get back to me, I heard no more.

What is really baffling is that I can buy goods made in Europe through the US cheaper than I can source in Europe so much for the common market! As I said before the courier was cheaper and it was also a lot quicker I once had an order in 3 to 4 days, when getting stuff from the UK usually took a couple of weeks when you questioned this the response was that it was in the post, which again is rather baffling.

I also had a incident with local customs who stopped a parcel at the airport, and the man on the phone said it is a simple task and it will only take a few minutes, so I went up without an exact invoice, and it took half an hour to sort out, the reason being that I had a variety of goods and each one was liable to a certain duty, even though I said charge the top duty for everything, this would have covered the half hour I wasted sorting out what each individual item was worth and what it might be classed as. Anyway whilst doing this we chatted away and he said how popular buying from the US was, and one of his colleagues had purchased a Harley direct from the US! Okay now the pound is lower it is not such a viable option, but I still buy stuff from the US all be it on a smaller scale.

I wonder how they currently get on with those paying GST on imported goods also, it really is a farce.

[shaunsky1]

hi guys all i can tell you world has gone mad mad i tell you mad mad mad ha ha ha now im going mad do you see the point there driving us all mad with the crap
TTFN