I just wanted to ask if you have to pay VAT on a used watch in the UK if I bought one from the US or EU? If so do I need to add 20% or is it less because it's used? If I do have to do you pay tax on the watch or the total price including shipping?

Thanks!

You will have to pay VAT on the watch from the US but you don't have to pay VAT on watches from another EU country. You can basically buy as many watches as you want from the EU and not pay any VAT(as you will have paid VAT in the EU on it). Given that the Euro is fairly low against sterling it makes sense to buy a watch in the EU.

There's often a handling charge from your shipper too...

M.

Does this work in reverse? I.e if I buy a watch second hand in Britain and export it to Switzerland, can I reclaim 20% VAT upon export or do they not attract VAT in the first place because they are second hand?

I thought as much. Bugger

Thanks

My $40 Item, shipped by domestic US post, attracted just over a fiver of VAT and a £8 fee. I wasn't best chuffed.

Not only that, but it was my own bloody fault that I needed the goods. As it's watch related...



I found a nice 1930's Bulova in an antiques shop. The face is unrestored and the 10K GF case is pretty good. Knowing that restored Bulovas from this era fetch £200ish and that good condition unrestored wathes are like hens teeth, I was happy to stump up the £95 asking price.

I knew the watch would probably need a service, but I was dead chuffed to find that it was actually running fast. So, stupidly, I opened the case and prised the movement out, planning to slow it up a little. I say "stupidly", it's not a difficult job, I've done this plenty of times to other watches. But this time, I applied my lever to the wrong place and managed to bend the balance staff (In my defense, you couldn't see it until the movement was out of the case.) So I killed an 80 year old original watch in less than 48 hours of ownership.

The parcel from the states is a replacement Bulova 7AK movement. Watch and movement are now at a trusted watch repairer.

A watch from Italy (within EU) will incur no VAT to import. What are you buying, can it not be sourced here on budget?....

I also bought a nice watch from an Italian dealer and it was sent via UPS.

The only additional costs incurred was a £27.00 charge from my bank, though it states on the confirmation slip: -

"The foreign bank MAY deduct a handling fee from the amount sent" (Their bold)

No fee was deducted, and the UPS guy appeared in under 24 hours, which impressed me.

With the exchange rate as it is, Europe seems a good place to buy at the moment.

Make sure you have a witness when you open the parcel. Expensive stuff that goes through the Italian postal service does't always go through the Italian postal service, if you know what I mean.

I got caught on a Tissot. The parcel bag had been cut open and resealed with packing tape, fortunately I was excited enough to open the parcel in the parcel office - so I had a couple of counter staff to act as a witness.

Parcel opened, found to be empty, and because the staff saw it, they let me immediately log it as opened and having had the contents stolen.

I've asked a couple of US sellers a few times to send the parcels marked as 'gift' under $15 dollars
to avoid the annoying tax catch - however i'm certainly not saying do that!

Other option is to get someone to bring you one back if they are away and wear it for the inbound journey?