VAT registration

[elfb9223]

I have been contacted by EBay to provide my VAT registration documents within the next 30 days or my account will be restricted

i have sold on EBay for 4 years and have always kept my sales under the VAT Threshold 

I have discussed this with my accountant who is daunting I do not need to register for

VAT

just wondering if any body else has encountered this issue and any resolutions .

thank you 

[cernak.m]

I didnt realized that the tracking info is broken too.
That makes the situation even worse, as with this error it looks its shipped from the UK , which is not true and than the system thinks the item was located and shipped from the UK, which is the trigger for the UK VAT requrement for oversees seleers like us.

Checked my listings and its the same with the tracking info.
On ebay is wrongly marked as "Item Leaving the UK" , while on the Royal mail site it is correct "Item Leaving overseas Slovakia"

This is wrong! Someone shoud do something about that.
Ebay, your listings location is broken, look at it someone!
Is it a known issue and we should not be woried and consider the UK VAT requrement email an error and mistake?

[fargvs]

@tilly.matt221   @cernak.m 

Using a UK Registered account to sell from Slovakia?... Since Brexit and by Default you are considered to be a UK seller and subject to UK site VAT rules and other EU/UK Item location/s Import/Export regulations. 

Consider using a Eurozone EU registered site or the International www.ebay.com site to prevent these issues.

[cernak.m]

@fargvs 

No, its a Slovakia registrated account on UK site (for me) and there are a different rules for oversees sellers selling on UK marketpace, Brexit has nothing to do with it. You can register on which ever eBay site you want, even eBay de, it does not matter, you just need to follow the country rules.

In this case I am quite sure its the location error which is triggering this, as it is the only requrement for overseas sellers selling on UK marketplace when they need to provide UK VAT. Its because eBay is already  automatically collecting VAT for HMRC for all orders from the UK for oversees sellers  so you dont need to have VAT yourself.
We do NOT match any of the following (below) and see the 2nd point, this is the trigger for us impacted by the location error:


Link here for the eBay VAT page.

There are different VAT rules for UK marketplaces and EU eshops selling to UK customers . For the first, marketplace is respsosible to collect VAT and for the 2nd owner of the esop is.

The only exception when you need to provide UK VAT even if you are selling on marketplace as an oversees seller is, when your stock is in the UK while your registration address is utside of the UK.

Thats why this location error is causing this issues with a VAT requrement, because with this location error it looks like our stock is in the UK - one of the VAT triggers, while in reality it is not.

[sml192]

Where are you getting that they are registered in the UK from?  Both accounts are registered in Slovakia.

@tilly.matt221 Regardless of the VAT registration issue, you need to upgrade to a 'Business' account as you appear to be buying items to sell.  A 'Private' account is only for those selling unwanted personal possessions. 

[tilly.matt221]

I`m registered as private Slovak seller with Slovak addres and Slovak bank account.  After brexit i double checked with ebay and everything was alright with them. 

For your information, most of the European sellers are registered on the UK ebay site, because that was the only option. Ebay does not have a designated webpage for every country.

Besides that, I`m a buyer as well,

I hope this explains 

[tilly.matt221]

All of the items I sell are unwanted gifts or used items or items I do not need anymore. I DO NOT purchase them to resell.

Look at the low starting prices - if I bought these items, then the sale price would have to be much higher for me to make any profit (bearing in mind that I charge much lower postage costs than I'm actually paying, and that I have to pay 20% ebay fees).

[fargvs]

Locations >>> These links should help >

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vat-and-overseas-goods-sold-to-customers-in-the-uk-using-online-marketpl...

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/changes-to-vat-treatment-of-overseas-goods-sold-to-custom...

[papso22]

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@tilly.matt221 wrote:

I`m registered as private Slovak seller with Slovak addres and Slovak bank account.  After brexit i double checked with ebay and everything was alright with them. 

For your information, most of the European sellers are registered on the UK ebay site, because that was the only option. Ebay does not have a designated webpage for every country.

Besides that, I`m a buyer as well,

I hope this explains 

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I think being registered on ebay uk won't be helping.  Ebay CS now recommend registering on .com if there is no local ebay for your country. 

[tilly.matt221]

Thank you, I have already received these links from eBay CS and they clearly state that I do not need to register for a UK VAT number:

- I`m a private seller with rolling 12 months turnover under 2000 GBP

- my turnover in 10 years on ebay is way under 85K

I contacted HMRC regarding VAT exemption confirmation and their response was:

'We cannot answer your query, as it does not fall under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA)'.

I called HMRC and they confirmed that I do not need a UK VAT tax number, but again, refused to email me the confirmation for the above reason.

With thousands of EU sellers on ebay now contacting HMRC with the same problem, I hope someone there loses their nerve and contacts ebay to stop this nonsense.

[fargvs]

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@tilly.matt221   @cernak.m 

Using a UK Registered account to sell from Slovakia?... Since Brexit and by Default you are considered to be a UK seller and subject to UK site VAT rules and other EU/UK Item location/s Import/Export regulations. 

Consider using aEurozone EU registered siteor the Internationalwww.ebay.com site to prevent these issues.

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@fargvs wrote:

Locations >>> These links should help >

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vat-and-overseas-goods-sold-to-customers-in-the-uk-using-online-marketpl...

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/changes-to-vat-treatment-of-overseas-goods-sold-to-custom...

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[tilly.matt221]

I`m registered with my Slovak address and Slovak bank account.

I checked with eBay CS and they confirmed that it is not a problem. EU buyers and sellers can be registered on ebay.co.uk

[papso22]

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@tilly.matt221 wrote:

I`m registered with my Slovak address and Slovak bank account.

I checked with eBay CS and they confirmed that it is not a problem. EU buyers and sellers can be registered on ebay.co.uk

---

They can, as in it is possible, but what ebay CS don't appreciate are the problems it causes post Brexit.

[cernak.m]

I just got an information from my eBay account manager that their backend team looked at my listing and since non of them are located in the UK at this moment I am not UK VAT elegible, so I should ignor the email asking me to provide this UK VAT number.
That it was anough I repaired all effected listings from UK location to my country location.

Unfortunatelly, she was not able to provide me an email conifrmation as well.
And regarding the location bug - causing all of this trouble, ebay team was not able to find anything wrong on their side 🙂

So I hope she is correct and there will be no other UK VAT involvment.

Like I said and like @tilly.matt221  confirmed with HMRC, we are not eleigible for the UK VAT as even HMRC  recognize this. But the issue is, that there are many automatic systems here on eBay and one of them can still decide after 30 days, that we did not provided the UK VAT, so it will remove all active listings from the account. - Like thats the worst case scenario and I really hope I am wrong and the CS was correct and that there is nothing to be afraid off.
Anyway I reccomend some listings backup with some 3rd party software just in case...

[faby-76]

I am also a seller outside the UK, based in Italy.

I had the same problem as you, only that my items did not change location,

They always had the location Italy but the system detected that they were based in the UK.

I raised the problem to eBay Developer and some eBay insider.

Last night I received this email.

So it was a Bug that they fixed, but we still need to do a complete revise of ItemLocation.

Furthermore, after having carried out the revise of the listings, it is necessary to notify the relevant Team that deals with the VAT IDs of the account for the removal of the alert and requirement relating to the insertion of the UK VAT ID.

I hope I was helpful.

[cernak.m]

Thank you for sharing this.

Much appraciated.

[pt_baix]

I was also affected by the automatic change of listings to the UK. But I did not receive this email from eBay. When did you receive it?

[faby-76]

I received the email because I escalated the case to internal departments,

the bug is fixed. But you must in any case revise all the listings and set them as the exact location.

[tilly.matt221]

@cernak.m

I got the same message yesterday. I contacted ebay today and they confirmed that it, indeed, was a technical bug, which will be solved soon and I should ignore the messages about adding a UK VAT tax number to my account.

The problem is that the request for the UK tax number is still in my account`s  'personal information' section, written in red letters.

And, ebay still asks me to fix the item location on my listings, even though all are / were set to Bratislava, Slovakia.

I will wait a few days and contact ebay again, if it won`t be removed beforehand.

[pt_baix]

after all this time has anyone had any problems or had their account blocked because of the uk vat number?

[cernak.m]

Myself not. But it took a lot of effort and time to do so. There is at least one other account which was not so lucky and received follow up email after 30 days, that his account is restricted till he upload UK VAT. Hopefully by now, he was able to solve it.