Aliexpress and Other Chinese Sellers Will They Be More Expensive from Jan 1st?
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Saw something back along that the loophole where goods under £15 would be closed and custom and VAT charges would apply from January 1st but can't actually see that confirmed anywhere. Is it a thing or not? Should we be ordering our Chinese tat now in order to save perhaps 20-30%. If so surely we are close to the time when we risk import charges. Some orders can take 2-3 weeks to come and could be held at customs for sometime, sometimes over a month. The huge changes coming in on January 1st will surely create issues even before that date. Same for orders from Amazon and Ebay that are Chinese sellers and other sites like bangood etc.
https://tamebay.com/2020/07/marketplaces-to-collect-overseas-seller-vat-from-1st-jan-2021.html
If its dearer people will just stop buying it will be good for our manufacturers who make better quality anyway
I think generally its the type of products we can't make but the benefit to the UK economy is UK companies will be selling the products at similar prices so more of the revenue stays in the UK. So instead of one item being separately packed and sent from China a UK supplier will buy the product in bulk and retail it over here. At the moment they don't bother as they can't compete due to the tax loophole on low value items. The Chinese government also allows Chinese companies to post goods for free and because of a long time arrangement the Royal Mail processes those parcels for free too from UK port to residential addresses which again unfairly subsidises Chinese sellers. That I assume will continue but at least they won't come in tax free anymore. Still on the over side as someone who uses Aliexpress for occasional items I will obviously have to pay more for any items that arrive in the UK or are processed by customs after January 1st.
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