With the re-opening of orders I put in mine and paid 66,64 euro.Today the mailman was here(Belgium) with the package and I was invited to pay 40,68 euro for customs and taxes,bringing  it to 107,32......Compared to the amount of my original order this is outrageous and will surely influence orders to come.@ Baccus:anyone interested in opening a shop this side of the North Sea?

@Seth - Too bad. In France, orders from outisde Euro zone are taxed as well, not only for regular custom taxes, but also for the time(?) and efforts(???) customs spend in making you paying the additional regular tax... Then you may pay more taxes than the initial value of your order.This is what I call racket. However, a EU based business for Baccus would be really great, if business may justify it... and f***ing COVID as well... This is a complex stuff I think but I could be intersted contributing as well.

Well, us Brits can now revel in the fact that we have our sovereignty back, control of our borders and the blitz spirit that was so missing from our daily lives. 

I am joking. It is a complete and utter FUBAR. And I am mighty cross about it.

"Mighty cross" is a major understatement. I'm seriously considering writng a stern letter to the Prime Minister...ah, yes, I see what the problem is.

Putting a country's future in the hands of people who have no grasp of international politics, law or trade, whilst many of whom are also xenophobic is close to criminal. One day Cameron may have to answer for not standing up to his back bench minority. Anyway, suffice to say I recently paid 30 euro on an order from the UK and 8 euro on one from the US. My son's friend runs a vape shop business in Germany and she has now stopped ordering supplies from the UK. It really is the most awful shambles and a brilliant example of misplaced national pride. But then pride does come before a fall!

The English (not the British) never fully understood the EU and its aims, nor were their leaders (Murdoch, Rothermere, etc.) inclined to enlighten them. Attitudes towards the EU were influenced by newspaper articles - particularly those of one Brussels-based correspondent later sacked for lying. I wonder what became of him - professional disgrace, social ostracism, remorse and penitence? Oh, hang on.......
 

<RANT>

My personal and professional opinions on the abomination that is Brexit have been aired on the News Page of this site and on Social Media.  For my sins I received a range of negative replies, indignant statements from people who had never placed an order that they would never buy from Baccus again, and some really quite nasty direct emails whose contents are not repeatable.   The main thing that united all of these was a complete lack of understanding of the myriad negative implications that would arise from Brexit, and an appeal to a mythical nirvana once we were freed from the' EU tyranny'.   Good grief!

So Baccus and thousands of similar small, resource-poor companies and their customers are picking up the tab for this combination of stupidity and cynical manipulation.   Here is where we stand:

• Firstly, I feel the pain on the extra charges.  The 'handling fees' charged seem to be whimsical and arbitrary, but out of our hands.  Please so remember that because we are VAT registered, the basic charge to EU customers has been reduced by 20% which will put the extra costs in some perspective.
• Setting up an EU outlet is not an option at the moment.   The costs and bureacracy for a company of our size and under current circumstances make this impractical.  The discount required by a distributor makes it financially impractical.   Finally, we are hard pressed enough to supply our direct to customer orders without the massive effort of supplying even a basic range to a third party.
• However - and this is the good news - there is a potential solution in sight.  We will be joining the IMOSS scheme later this year which will mean that we register for VAT in an EU country.  We will then charge EU customers VAT at that country's rate and collect it.   Parcels to the EU will then bear an EU VAT number and, in theory, clear customs and go direct to customer without the need for delays and handling fees.   We will face extra admin costs that we may have to pass on the EU customs and the EU VAT rate will be set by the country where we choose to register.

I really value all of our many European customers and am devastated that we can no longer visit Crisis every November and get the chance to meet many of you.

Please bear with us.  We will do our best that we can to get the best for you.
 

</RANT>

That is great news Peter, although this whole fiasco will I fear cost the UK dear in the future. I see the government is introducing a law that will clamp down on even peaceful protest in the UK. Aint sovereignty a great thing. Anyway I'm having a much more stress free life here in the Netherlands and look forward to continuing to support Baccus. All the best for the future.

Good to hear about Baccus joining the IMOSS scceme, Peter.  Hope it works out as planned.

So far this year I have received 3 parcels from the UK.  The first was from Baccus sent in December which attracted no extra charge.  The second from Chariot Miniatures where I just had to pay a charge at the village post office that was less than the VAT would have been,  The third was from Kernow Model Rail Centre, where the customs sent me a form to fill in (in Bulgarian of course) and send back to them.  I ended up paying about 20% more to them for the model railway carriages than the VAT would have been.

Peter

I suggest you close this thread immediately - it is not the place to discuss Brexit - I personally find some of these comments offensive and I don't want to start a slanging match

J