Exporting goods and zero-rating VAT

[rodericb]

I am in Australia and buying some motorcycle bits from a company in England. Their new website software (and I presume all other systems linked to it) show prices only as seemingly VAT inclusive. Their old software used to display inc and ex VAT. As I am in Australia I would like to pay the Australian equivalent (GST) when the goods arrive here as it's 10% and not the 20% which VAT is. There's no mechanism here to claim back consumption taxes overpaid - the Australian government bodies responsible for it all are all computer-says-no and that it's all between buyer and seller.

Is being schtum on removing VAT from goods being exported one of those little rorts which people love to do for the tasty 20% extra? Or is zero-rating for exported goods a ball ache due to bureaucracy? The parts will most likely have been manufactured in the EU and imported into UK and they'll be exported....

[akirk]

it may be as simple as they don't know how to set up their new website software if they used to do it differently and it has now changed with the new software.
Why not contact them and ask them?

[rodericb]

akirk said:

it may be as simple as they don't know how to set up their new website software if they used to do it differently and it has now changed with the new software.
Why not contact them and ask them?

Thanks yeah I emailed them to ask if they could zero-rate my order a couple of days ago and haven't had any response. It could well be that the new software is the problem but I thought I should research a bit further into exporting and zero-rate VAT.

[sunbeam alpine]

Do you have an Australian VAT number (or equivalent)?

It used to be the case that we could only zero-rate VAT sales for B2B sales, not B2C. I think these rules have changed recently (but your seller may not know this), and as we stopped exporting a couple of years back, my knowledge is no longer up-to-date.

[Ean218]

sunbeam alpine said:

Do you have an Australian VAT number (or equivalent)?

It used to be the case that we could only zero-rate VAT sales for B2B sales, not B2C. I think these rules have changed recently (but your seller may not know this), and as we stopped exporting a couple of years back, my knowledge is no longer up-to-date.

Not that was only intra EU exports.

[sunbeam alpine]

Ean218 said:

sunbeam alpine said:

Do you have an Australian VAT number (or equivalent)?

It used to be the case that we could only zero-rate VAT sales for B2B sales, not B2C. I think these rules have changed recently (but your seller may not know this), and as we stopped exporting a couple of years back, my knowledge is no longer up-to-date.

Not that was only intra EU exports.

Ah, sorry - that was indeed what we used to do.

[chippy348]

OP what website is it ?

My own site shows both + vat and Inc vat. Once you go through checkout and enter your country it will remove the VAT before you make payment.

Try that

[rodericb]

I spoke to the owner yesterday and they are "not registered for VAT". Which is a bit strange as their prices include VAT and I'd imagine their turnover is greater than £85,000. So it seems like an easy 20% bonus for them for overseas customers - like it or lump it....

[Evoluzione]

Not much you can do If they aren't VAT reg.
Well, unless you have someone trusted in the UK who can buy and send to you at a declared lower value.
Brexit saw a lot of export/import business die.

[akirk]

If they are not registered for vat then their prices can not include vat - how is their invoice structured?

You could check turnover if they are registered at companies house

[Dr Interceptor]

It can be a PITA.

I've turned off automatic VAT removal on our websites, we have one payment processor for online sales and one for offline. It is just easier for us to assume for accounting purposes that all income on the online channels includes VAT at 20%.

I can still take a zero VAT sale manually, but I Invoice this through our Sage system with the correct Tax code at 0%, so its automatically accounted for correctly come VAT return time.