As of July 1 , all orders we make to China will increase in price, since we will have to pay VAT at source. It will be the store that collects this VAT and then enters it at the corresponding address in the European Union, but the user will have to pay it. However, the AliExpress parent company is beginning to communicate to users a trick to avoid paying this VAT.
This is what Alibaba is doing, which is sending emails to its buyers detailing what their new obligations are, and how we can skip them. The company now has the obligation to collect VAT from purchases made through its marketplace, unless the buyer meets a series of requirements.
Alibaba urges users to cheat with VAT
Among those requirements is to have a registered VAT number , known as VAT-NIF , and that can be solved by the self-employed, natural or legal persons who make intra-community sales, who are taxable persons of VAT , who provide services to another EU country. , or simply legal persons that are not self -employed professionals or entrepreneurs who make purchases of goods with VAT within the EU.
Now, this modality will also be extended to purchases from outside the EU , including those from China. To have an NIF-VAT number , which in the case of a person would be the letters ES followed by the DNI, it is necessary to register in the Registry of Intra-Community Operators (ROI) when registering with the Treasury or when more intra-community operations are to be carried out. forward through model 036.
Thus, if we have that valid VAT-NIF number, purchases made for work-related purposes (such as a screwdriver if you have a workshop) will be exempt from VAT. To do this, you will have to provide the VAT number to Alibaba so that it can be associated with the Alibaba account.
European warehouses: a more comfortable alternative
As we can see, this exemption affects a small percentage of the population, since a person cannot register without being self-employed to obtain a VAT number for something other than their professional activity. Therefore, all purchases less than 22 euros , and those higher as before, will have to pay VAT , so declaring a lower value will no longer be worth anything.
To the price of VAT, it is probable that a customs procedure will have to be added if the declaration is not made correctly, with the corresponding cost. Therefore, it is recommended that the order come in as few packages as possible, in addition to the customs declaration process being done by us for free on the Internet. That way we will not have to pay anything beyond the corresponding VAT.
Stores like AliExpress have it easy to bypass this block beyond the VAT-NIF: having European warehouses , just as other alternatives to AliExpress do. With this, all the purchases we make will be exempt as they are made within European territory. The price of the products may be somewhat higher, but they will also arrive earlier.
