VAT charged on the Buyer Protection Fee

[eyewear247]

Having just made a purchase from a private seller that will be connected with my business the price I paid is inclusive of the new eBay buyer protection fee which included £0.72 VAT.  As a VAT registered business I would like to reclaim this VAT payment back.

Obviously the private seller will not be providing a VAT receipt, the only proof of the VAT paid is the standard eBay order confirmation that I printed off. However this not a valid VAT receipt.

Has anyone had experience of accounting for and reclaiming the VAT element paid on a buyer protection fee ?

Thanks in advance.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

I think it's just a tad too early for anyone to really have had much experience of this.

Best bet at this point, would be contact support I think and simply ask them for an invoice.

[4_bathrooms]

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@eyewear247 wrote:

Obviously the private seller will not be providing a VAT receipt, the only proof of the VAT paid is the standard eBay order confirmation that I printed off. However this not a valid VAT receipt.

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As eBay (not the seller) charged the BPF the VAT invoice would need to be issued by eBay.

Did you purchase using your business account? If so, have you looked here to see if there is a VAT invoice there? My gut feeling is any BPFs paid will be shown in the monthly invoice but eBay should elaborate really.

[eyewear247]

@4_bathrooms  @therenewalworkshopltd 

Thanks for your replies.

Yes I did purchase via my business account. 

Thanks for the link, maybe it will be displayed there but I think I will have to wait until I have access to my March invoice to find out.

I should phone eBay and ask but my gut feeling is they will not know what I am talking about and can I really be bothered to tie up 30 minutes of my day over £0.74 ? hence that's why I thought I would place a quick post on this board in case another member has experience this themselves and could throw back a quick answer..

I will phone eBay at some stage when I get a spare 30 minutes.

[magpiecorner1]

I suspect HMRC wouldn't waste much time on small amounts, but who knows?  Are receipts still accepted, if so print a copy of the order details, and the payment details and eBays VAT number which is GB 365 6085 76, then you have your paper trail.  Drop them a line and ask if that would be ok.

Not sure how detailed VAT investigations are these days but I've only had one, and it was a ten minute phone call.  Though that was in the days when you could pop into your LOCAL tax office with a query and speak to someone very very knowledgeable  about VAT, and also the days when petrol receipts lost all their ink within about six months.

[4_bathrooms]

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@magpiecorner1 wrote:

I suspect HMRC wouldn't waste much time on small amounts, but who knows? 

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HMRC only care about VAT being charged and remitted correctly. They're not going to care if a VAT registered business fails to reclaim the input VAT paid on a purchase. As per the language used by HMRC a VAT registered business must charge VAT on the goods and services they sell (unless they are exempt) and can reclaim VAT paid on business expenses.

[technoshack_uk]

HI if you go into your order confirmation page and scroll to the bottom of the page there should be a link to the VAT invoice from eBay. See attached screenshot from one of our orders.

I don't think the hyperlink appears until the order has shipped from the supplier.

There is a caveat to this though..!

We have two eBay business accounts.  For one of our accounts this is working fine and the invoices appear but on the other account they don't appear.

I have a current case with eBay about this and as a previous reply mentioned so far they have been not great in resolving or I even think understanding the query. All they do is send me a copy of the order confirmation and I have just replied this morning with screenshots from our other eBay account and a copy of the actual invoice from eBay to show them what I am expecting.

Not holding my breath that it will get resolved....

Hope that helps.

[technoshack_uk]

Just following up on the message I posted a few minutes ago.

I have now had two replies from eBay support this morning and despite clearly explaining to them it is a VAT invoice I need and sending them screenshots they just keep replying with copies of the order confirmation so I wouldn't waste my time for the sake of a few quid to try and get the correct paperwork from eBay.

[4_bathrooms]

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@technoshack_uk wrote:

We have two eBay business accounts.  For one of our accounts this is working fine and the invoices appear but on the other account they don't appear.

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Is that invoice specifically for the BPF?