VAT - EU Purchases

[ononokajibwa]

I'm hoping someone out there might have an answer for me. Since I'm not a resident of the EU (or the UK) but I find stock from the UK, am I eligible to get the VAT back from my purchases? Has anyone out there done so? If you have I would like to hear from you.

[muminlaw]

I've never applied to get VAT back so I can't help you there but, unless things have changed in the past few years, if you had the goods shipped to you here in Canada you shouldn't have had any VAT charged in the first place!

We used to travel to England regularly to purchase stamps and coins for our business and had the sellers send the goods by Registered Mail to our Canadian address. When they did that, they never charged us the VAT. If we had taken possession in England, VAT would have been charged. I honestly don't know if it would have been refundable but I assume it would have been. It should be similar to Americans getting the GST back when they take their Canadian purchases home. Glenda
To Golf or Not To Golf? What a stupid question!

[ononokajibwa]

Glenda, thanks for your reply. I spoke to a few of the places I buy from and they told me they had to charge it, which seemed odd to me. One of these days I will try to get in touch with HM Customs.

[recped]

You can get lots of info online.....

http://www.hmce.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageVAT_Home

It's pretty much the same as GST, exports are usually zero-rated and there are documentation required to substatiate export.

Much as quite a few Canadians (individuals or businesses) don't grasp the finer points of GST I'm sure the same applies in the uk especially those that are infrequent exporters.

I didn't dig aound on the site enough to find out about getting refunds but the info may be there somewhere. There is a PDF with all the requirements for registrants to NOT charge VAT on exports.

Ben
"What else could I do? I had no trade so I became a peddler" - Lazarus Greenberg 1915