When importing from Amazon US to UK a fees deposit is taken - but Amz US are unable to provide invoice for fees as charged
So just been chatting to Amazon US customer service. I imported an order from the US to the UK. When I do this with any other country outside the US they send the item (sometimes they pay the courier with a fee deposit) and then when the item is imported I am sent a bill and a subsequent invoice for the fees - allowing me to file this correctly and reclaim VAT against business purchases.
However I am informed by Amazon US customer service chat that the only information they have available is the ‘order summery’ that I can download readily myself. Despite taking money from me at the point of sale, and then refunding a few pence/cents they have now claimed the actual fees paid are unavailable to them and they cannot provide me with such an invoice. It seems like this is a ‘convenience’ which suits most of their customers but makes it impossible to buy anything you want to reclaim any country-specific tax for.
Ultimately it seems that Amazon is unable to connect their logistics that are handling the export/import with their customer service in order to provide the details of the fees as they were paid.
It looks like I have hit a brick wall with Amazon on this. I’m not really sure if this post will be able to do much more than raise this as an issue to the community.
5 replies
Seller_qZO3ZCjoBXEeL
The issue is that Amazon Global Services act at the importer of record. When the recipient (you) is not the entity billed for the import fees you are not the importer of record. As such you will be unable to recover these charges as you were not the importer and directly responsible for the payment of the VAT.
This is an issue when goods are sent DDP - the importer cannot recover taxes.
Seller_3tJ7bZP73wJ9a
I think I just answered my own question on Google: DDP VAT is reclaimed by the seller - as you alluded to. So any VAT ‘reclaim’ must be organised with the seller giving a refund on successfully reclaiming it.
I guess I can’t blame Amazon too much for this (although a better informed CS would be nice). But being able to remove the option for the fees to be paid in advance would avoid this pitfall.
Never mind, I’m doing my best to avoid Amazon these days anyway, so it’s a good reason to seek out other sellers
