Anyone Use Aliexpress? (The New Added VAT Stuff on orders)

[bagusbagus]

Now that the aliexpress charges you VAT on every order do you have to pay The Ridiculous £8 handling charge to post office If you Order items that are worth more than £15 like in past from china?
Obviously I'm not a fan of the vat charged on the tiny orders, however I was more Pi55ed off at the £8 post office handling charge that you could get hit with here.

[Spare tyre]

I’m sure I read on here you can get round it by doing something at checkout to adjust the insured value or something

[bagusbagus]

Spare tyre said:

I’m sure I read on here you can get round it by doing something at checkout to adjust the insured value or something

There's no such thing, either way.. I'm talking about something completely different

[MM]

I’ve received stuff I ordered after 1st Jan and it’s no different. Only issues is the vat at checkout.

Ive never had any issues with customs payments when using AliExpress.

[Silverage]

Isn’t this all stuff coming from China? So nothing’s changed has it?

[bagusbagus]

Silverage said:

Isn’t this all stuff coming from China? So nothing’s changed has it?

From 1st January , For all Online sales outside of UK you are required to Collect VAT on behalf of the UK Government at the point of sale for orders under 135 or something like that...

Previously If you had a package coming from China under 15squids you were charged nothing, if Over you were Slapped with VAT + Had to pay 8squids to Royalmail for the privilege of paying it before they will deliver the parcel to you.

Essentially all the tiny purchases from China now got 20% more expensive!
However I'm not sure about the damned RoyalMail Handling charges even if you have already paid the Vat to the Chinese now.

[Dan_1981]

Slightly off topic but related... vaguely..

Does anyone have any idea why some sellers are telling me they can't ship to the UK due to the pandemic?

I want to buy one of these...

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001722143046.h...

But both this seller and another claim Ali Express are stopping them shipping due to the pandemic... and obvously trying to speak to anyone at Ali is impossible.

[Silverage]

bagusbagus said:

Silverage said:

Isn’t this all stuff coming from China? So nothing’s changed has it?

From 1st January , For all Online sales outside of UK you are required to Collect VAT on behalf of the UK Government at the point of sale for orders under 135 or something like that...

Previously If you had a package coming from China under 15squids you were charged nothing, if Over you were Slapped with VAT + Had to pay 8squids to Royalmail for the privilege of paying it before they will deliver the parcel to you.

Essentially all the tiny purchases from China now got 20% more expensive!
However I'm not sure about the damned RoyalMail Handling charges even if you have already paid the Vat to the Chinese now.

Ah, I see. I didn’t know about that. I guess this would apply to the legions of Chinese sellers that gum up eBay and Amazon too. It will be interesting to see how that works out.