Customers not paying Brexit tax duties to transport company DPD
I’m sure there must be many sellers in the same situation as us.
We are a company based in the UK and we sell on Amazon France, Spain, Germany, Italy.
Since 1st Jan, Amazon is only taking the nett payment (excluding VAT) from buyers. We fulfil our orders ourselves with DPD. DPD take all the customs information and once they have received the parcel, they then email the Amazon buyer to pay the tax duties on the parcels. So far out of 11 orders, not a single Amazon buyer has paid their VAT duties to DPD. We have parcels just sitting in warehouses and customers not responding.
This situation does not look good at all and our Amazon foreign operation is looking incredibly bleak for the future.
Is anyone else experiencing the same? Does anyone have any tips to get around this mess? If we use FBA. will Amazon collected the VAT from the buyer?
Thanks
James
5 replies
Seller_qZO3ZCjoBXEeL
The reason none of your customers are paying is because they are not supposed to. If you sell on an EU Amazon site, it must be inclusive of all taxes. A French buyer on buying on Amazon France must not be asked to pay any additional fees to receive their purchase.
Goods shipped to these customers should be shipped inclusive of all fees. Typically this is DDP - Delivery Duty Paid.
Seller_7t3tQQwq45eRR
Hi Peter
Thanks for your response, it is reassuring to hear that maybe something is wrong!
I’ve noticed on our Amazon EU orders from customers, Amazon have automatically deducted the VAT / IVA from the order and only charged the customer the nett amount to pay. I am going to speak to Amazon regarding this issue as it seems ridiculous that an Amazon customer has to pay the taxes separately to DPD. Do you sell on Amazon EU sites? Did you have to inform Amazon of anything?
Thanks
James
Seller_huagau0cgXxBo
As others say, Amazon require the goods to be delivery duty paid. I used ‘Sell Globally’ to connect the European marketplaces to my UK listings and Amazon is no longer charging the customers VAT. Clearly someone has to pay that and if I’m paying it via the carrier than I am making a loss.
Surely Amazon could and should have ensured that when the price is converted for European marketplaces they would add an amount equivalent to what would have been charged in VAT. Then we get paid that amount and remit it via the carrier when we use a Delivery Duty Paid option.
Right now I’m not doing merchant fulfillment into Europe so I’m not commenting personally but one thing to consider is, I have heard of large national DHL accounts declaring their goods at cost price when they are shipped over borders and paying VAT on the cost. This can be an issue if a paper invoice quotes the cost and the customer sees it but some carriers offer a paperless option and it doesn’t seem unreasonable to quote the value of goods as being exactly what you paid for them, you would likely have an invoice supporting that value.
