Getting charged for Vat in Ireland twice?
Recently we’ve sold a few items on Amazon.co.uk through FBA to addresses in Ireland.
When the order comes through the buyer appears to get our item for around 20% less than the advertised price we have set.
When we come to check the transaction details we can see that we’ve also been charged additional VAT as well as having our items purchased for about 20% less than our set price.
I’ve asked about this on a case, and had a vague reply about VAT charges in Ireland - but it’s impossible to communicate to the Amazon associate that the buyers are purchasing our items for less than RRP and in addition to this, we’re getting charged extra VAT.
Does anyone have any advice or experience in resolving this kind of issue?
21 replies
Seller_esvgLzKXw2YAl
Assuming that you mean Southern Ireland, then Amazon will remove the VAT portion of the sale and charge the customer, the relevant Irish VAT rate. You should only receive the pre-vat portion of the sale.
Amazon are responsible for charging vat in the foreign country.
Seller_CHIUlYHJ2deyT
Yes, we have had exactly the same happen since the FBA Export was re-introduced.
Amazon are removing the UK VAT from your FBA asking price then offering the item to Irish buyers for this price including Irish VAT.
Amazon should be removing the UK VAT and then adding the Irish VAT before offing the item for sale in Ireland.
Amazon states “…FBA Shipping Programmes and Export (‘FBA Export’) allows you to fulfil orders of eligible products on Amazon.co.uk to a postal address that is not within the UK. With this programme, you can expand your business to more than 80 countries without dealing with the complexities of selling internationally, at no additional cost or effort for you…”
Seller_CHIUlYHJ2deyT
I am on my fourth iteration of the same raised case where I am trying to explain it over and over again. They keep sending me an explanation of IOSS Tax rules.
The simple fact is that Amazon FBA are retailing my product in the UK for £19.95 (which includes UK VAT) and Amazon are now also retailing the same product in Ireland for £ 16.62 (which includes ROI VAT)
Seller_CHIUlYHJ2deyT
The thing is there is no second VAT charge to claim back, this is a red herring. The problem is the Amazon system, they should be removing the UK VAT portion and then applying the ROI VAT
e.g. £19.95 UK retail price is actually £16.62 + VAT@ 20% = £19.95
therefore, Amazon FBA Export should be offering to Ireland £16.62 + VAT@23% = £20.44 (They should also be adding on any extra shipping costs incurred if required)
Seller_CHIUlYHJ2deyT
Yes, you have exactly the same problem, your UK price including VAT is £69.99. Amazon have removed the VAT from your UK price to give a net price of £58.32 and then sold it for that price in Ireland including 23% ROI VAT. So in your case the buyer has paid
£47.41 + ROI VAT @ 23%
This is ridiculous because it is plainly wrong to be offering your products to an EU buyer at almost 20% cheaper than to a UK buyer…
Seller_5X58bC45WdHYO
I’ve been having a similar issue for many months. I’m not VAT-registered.
Here’s an example of what would happen if someone made a £10 purchase from me from Ireland. The item would of course include no UK VAT…
£10 item.
- £1.67 to remove VAT at 20% (wait, what?).
x 1.23 to add Irish VAT.
= £10.25 cost to buyer.
So I receive £8.67 but pay fees on £10.25!
I tried to tell them that they shouldn’t be removing VAT from my purchases since there is no VAT in the first place. They sent it to the tax department, who after a couple of weeks said “it’s correct”.
So I decided to just turn off sales to Ireland a couple of weeks ago. Then I had a sale to Ireland about three days ago! So I opened another case about that and it’s been referred to some other team…
Seller_5X58bC45WdHYO
Thanks! That’s what I had set, but I don’t think I went in that way!
I followed your directions, and the settings I had previously created had been applied to amazon.de. I think I found that page from Google, and because the heading for that page doesn’t state the country that it applies to, it’s an easy mistake to make. I’ve now made sure the correct settings apply to .co.uk and I don’t expect any further problems!
Would be nice if Amazon fixed the problem with deducting non-existent UK VAT, though!
