BrexitImpacts: Companies charging more, or stopping sales because of Brexit

Is this entirely true? Isn't the UK now trading with Europe at World Trade Organization tariffs? Or was a better deal made? The EU has trading agreements with a significant part of the world. See this map for example: https://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2020/december/tradoc_.... If the UK is now trading at WTO rules they would be worse off than all those countries that have an agreement. Eyeballing that chart about 50% of the world would have an easier route to trade with the EU than the UK.

Apparently the VAT changes apply to everyone and are quite problematic.

To give a bit of context for those who didn't handle this kind of thing by themselves: VAT used to be handled as part of customs check. In practice that meant that if you were selling to UK (or other EU country) from outside customs union, you'd send your shipment as usual and only attach declaration of contents, and the buyer (importer) would pay VAT and necessary customs fees if applicable.

The new regime apparently requires the seller to setup VAT registration in UK, properly process VAT on their side, then transfer it to HMRC (UK tax agency).

This is a HUGE difference and big burden to both exporters and importers. Yes, importers now don't need to handle VAT - but they are still on the hook for customs fees, and now they have to worry not just about "did the other side file customs declaration right", something moderately easy to fix when it goes bad, but have to deal with "we can't import unless the seller effectively set ups half a company in UK"

> The freedom of people movement changes are much more concerning though.

I'm keeping an eye out for the first "person who has lived in the UK blamelessly for more than a decade is deported" story. I'm also wondering how patchily the parcel enforcement is going to apply to aliexpress and friends.

The biggest change is that now the person shipping (or a marketplace if they use it) has to be VAT-registered and pay VAT directly to the government, rather than it be handled by the courier/shipping service who would collect it directly from the recipient before releasing the package to them. I think it's a pretty significant change to how third countries work, especially if they only occasionally ship to the UK.

The EU are adopting the same rules in July, and I'm not sure why we didn't harmonise the introduction date with the EU.

I don't think that's true. Before VAT was charged at customs, but I believe now, VAT has to be charged at the point of sale, meaning any non-UK websites selling to the UK have to update their websites and associated logistics

The problem with VAT is that a lot of UK companies somehow forgot brexit happened, and that means different VAT handling. Well, among other problems, too.

>Sometimes the pro-EU movement’s most promising (if passive) argument was that the EU runs things much better than the UK, so let’s just give all the power to Brussels instead.

I think, no one argues that the EU runs things better in principle. The argument is that having to deal with a single set of rules is superior to having to so with multiple different ones (which to some degree is the current status within the EU too). How those rules are executed is orthogonal to it, and I would say that most proponents of the EU will agree, that there is room for improvement, as you surely will with how things are run in the UK.

The power is not simply given to Brussels, your government has in most cases a veto. And depending on how your parliament has set up the checks and balances with your government, the agreements are subject to your parliaments approval.

In other cases it has go through EU parliament, and you can lobby your MEP.

So, in essence, it is not some anonymous thing in Brussel doing things, it is your government and your MEP to whom you can direct your complaints. In most cases though likely the very same government you still have to content with.

You're going to be down voted here on HN, sorry in advance.

Wrongly or rightly (we'll see), Brexit was about control. The UK having such control allows them to more easily adapt to their unique local situation, and by extension to external agents.

> The linked Twitter thread points to how much better run

> the EU system is.

A few days in and people are already claiming it was a mistake (big surprise) - really not long enough to see the results of anything. My guess is that we'll have a good idea in the next 6 months, once the paperwork is really rolled out and businesses have a better idea of what to expect, the markets should be settled.

> Were remainders ceding tax authority to the EU because

> they were more competent?

This is what I find crazy. In fact, it is well documented that most Countries are well under their projected targets [1]. Germany seems to be the only real winner.

[1] https://www.cep.eu/fileadmin/user_upload/cep.eu/Studien/20_J...

I think that you can consider the Remain / Leave argument in the abstract as being a debate between:

1. Ability to change rules more rapidly and in a way that better suits local conditions.

2. Greater interntational cooperation and coordination.

The problem is that although 1. sounds like an unadulterated benefit it isn't always. It's more likely to result in rules that swing rapidly between approaches (as government changes especially in a system like the UK's) and also probably more susceptible to regulatory capture.

So it's not really abour 'running better' - it's about stability at the expense of a degree of responsiveness.

You might say that, but in reality it used to be a per-parcel threshold (£15? maybe) which is now being reduced to zero.

(I'm old enough to remember when companies including Amazon shipped CDs from Jersey/Guernsey to the UK, since they were outside the EU but not "foreign" for the UK. https://www.independent.co.uk/money/spend-save/cheap-cds-and... (2005). The UK retains its collection of Annoying Edge Case Islands. A hilarious side effect of the deal is that the extremely British island of Gibraltar is now in Schengen!)

It can't easily be done "per company" because it has to be a process applied by customs to each parcel individually as it enters the country.

This is, after all, what all the "taking back control of our borders" stuff meant: more forms.

VAT threshold is 135 GBP per parcel, and you're on the hook for full VAT handling plus whatever time it takes probably overburdened (thanks to stupid decisions by politicians) civil service to register you plus all the setup and training to handle VAT on your side.

Also consider that the onus is on the exporter, not importer now. Which also means trouble for importer as they have possible issue of "our supplier doesn't have the VAT handling done, we don't have any viable alternative"

That's because at every turn short-term political calculus and keeping the rabid British right-wing press onside took precedence over trifling matters like the country's economy.