silversky

So the bullion vault private trades were accurate at 930$ in the last hour

The dealers win with volume not price.  They hedge what they buy so the price doesn't affect them.  It only affects them if they sell too much and cant unhedge during the weekend hours.  Hence why they stop selling at the weekend if there is too much volume or they expect a gap up Monday.

23:00 is when any real action will start

8 minutes ago, BackyardBullion said:

One thing that JP Morgan could do is just dump billions of oz onto the market to keep silver down, then people lose confidence and JP rebuys when it's back to where prices are now. It wouldn't cost them much to do it.

Also, as some people have pointed out a lot of big wallstreet funds are long on silver so it defeats the point 

Are you watching the live discussion posted by Paul?  Interesting people, interesting discussion with big dealers talking about their experiences.

gs.be apparently out of stock on a lot of items.  I suspect they'll find some more stock tonight though.  

And the price per ounce has just risen again to $34.08  Either there are buyers buying or they're getting nervous.

I just stuck 1000 Britannias into the cart on the GS.BE website to see if they are selling at bulk.  Seems they are but something odd happened.  Prior to putting them in the cart, their page said they are selling for US $32.53.  But immediately I put them in the cart the price jumped to $32.80. 

3 minutes ago, Pipers said:

Chards said they are taking orders

 

The question is really whether the European and American dealers are taking orders.  

1 minute ago, Paul said:

I wonder how many forum Millionaires we will have by this time next weekend thanks to silver !  😎

Bring on £500oz before Friday please 

Yeah but don't forget to bring on some actual buyers of physical at that price too please!!

A margin call moon shot doesn't have any actual buyers in it.  It runs solely on the high octane fuel of exploding hedge funds.  

3 minutes ago, BackyardBullion said:

Royal mail are the cheapest too, some couriers charge up to £20!

The advantage to the couriers is that they deliver then bill you.  Royal mail take nearly a week to get round to putting a card through the door demanding payment.  Shocking service from RM.

2 minutes ago, RoughDog said:

Since 31st December looks like eBay purchases are 20% more expensive.

 

Write to the seller and ask them to remove the German vat.  They used to be able to send you an invoice to accept.  If they can send one that is minus the German VAT and then plus the UK VAT, that might be an option.  Not sure if the ebay site is geared up to do that sort of thing yet but I imagine that it is in ebay's interest to sort it out to keep business flowing.

34 minutes ago, silvernewbie said:

What if someone sends coins in a parcel and marks it as a low value gift, how would customs know the value? 

They might or might not xray it and open it.  If they do xray it they will know it's silver and open it if it's more than a small amount.  Once it's been discovered to be illegally marked for customs then who knows where that's going.  You are allowed to send a genuine gift up to £39 in value I think.  But if you're planning a larger amount then it's just smuggling and not worth the agro.  At the very least you'll pay the correct tax on it and then there will probably be a load of penalty charges to pay for their time examining it.  Might end up expensive.

2 hours ago, Cornishfarmer said:

When Americans buy from the royal mint don’t they buy without the U.K. vat.    So when we buy from Europe shouldn’t we be able to buy tax free from Europe then pay vat when imported?

Yes.  They don't have VAT.  Some states have sales tax which they add on but the sale has to have been in that state.  So as far as I know, the Americans can buy Royal mint products 20% cheaper than us Brits.  The Europeans can also buy the same products using their margin scheme in Germany, as can most of the world which doesn't have VAT.  The irony of it all is that it is pretty much only us Brits who have to pay 20% tax to own our own legal tender!

8 minutes ago, Pete said:

The larger investors will keep their silver vaulted meaning they haven't had to pay VAT so don't worry about it.
If our Royal Mint issues 1 million ounces of a silver coin I cannot see members of the silver forum purchasing collectively much more than 1% or possibly substantially less so their business will not be affected. We are perhaps only in the noise part of their sales spectrum.

I agree that some will switch to vaulted.  But many won't.  I know of a number of people who lost hundreds of thousands of pounds when a precious metals vaulting firm turned out to be empty.  People are naturally a little cautious over these schemes.  I'm not planning on buying into any of them myself.

3 minutes ago, LoveThemCoins said:

I assume you are basically saying tax evasion is rife.

What?  No.  No one has evaded any tax.

The disincentive mechanism was to drive bullion markets to Germany and it worked well.  Everyone bought their silver in Europe.  My monster boxes (preordered) arrived two weeks after the Royal Mint release date having been shipped from Heathrow to New York to Frankfurt before making their way by road to Estonia and then being trucked back into the UK.  The whole market is doing the same or similar.  It's not a secret to any government and it was entirely sanctioned because it supported German dealers.  It was a deliberate action to give the bullion business to Germany.  Simple.

10 hours ago, Martlet said:

Suggest that highlighting a tax avoidance loophole is not the best argument. Nor is making claims without evidence - do you know how much Royal Mint sells through Europe?  The case to make is the simple one on legal tender and secondly that silver bullion should be treated same as gold or other investments, and made exempt from VAT.

I don't believe that I'm making a claim about the Royal Mint selling a lot of silver through Europe without evidence.  It may be circumstantial but I simply don't believe that it's possible that there are any large buyers of physical silver in the whole of Europe (including the UK) who didn't know that the German dealers are the cheapest.  None.

If we start with the rich, they aren't foolish or naïve enough not to compare costs across the channel.  They didn't get rich by being lazy and not bothering to do a simple price comparison, and they don't tend to invest large sums of money without doing a bit of research first.  Most medium and small investors receive some form of investment advice either from a professional or in the form of a magazine such as moneyweek.  Not a month goes by without moneyweek making some reference to precious metals with a reminder to look abroad to secure silver at the correct price.

Perhaps there are a few people who start out spontaneously and make a few small purchases, but they very quickly find this forum or a facebook page or even reddit and are alerted to the price difference.  This is why it is highly likely that the bulk of Royal Mint silver bought all over Europe (including the UK) has been bought under German differential VAT schemes or through Estonia VAT free.

The simple truth is that Germany runs the European physical Silver market and that is NOT an accident!   It was captured by design and was UK short sightedness that allowed the situation to develop.  Germany deliberately allows the so-called loophole differential scheme, whilst enforcing an EU wide blanket requirement for everyone else to charge VAT at standard rates.  Estonia's politicians already capitulated to this requirement ages ago and it's just about timing their implementation.  It may now already have taken place but there is no move to close down German dealers and their 'loophole'.  Until we left the EU there was no way ever that we would be granted the right to copy Germany.  The whole purpose of that 'loophole' was to drive bullion business to German shores.  Different nations were granted different economies by the EU.  France and Italy have been granted agriculture which is why every workaround and incentive is geared towards serving them.  It's no coincidence that Germany has the high tech, automotive, bullion and finance markets.  This is the high end stuff and it reflects their status as the senior partner within the EU.

Now that we're out of this silly central planning scheme it would be wise of our government to abandon this disincentive mechanism because it no longer drives our business towards the German dealers as intended.  Instead it now applies a tax which no one ever paid which will damage our Royal Mint.  Applying a 20% tax to the market overnight will definitely reduce demand inside the UK.  I don't care what anyone says, applying a 20% upfront tax to a market overnight has a definite chilling effect.

British residents are the big buyers of (higher than standard bullion premium) Royal Mint products because of the CGT benefit which they confer.  But, it's a lure because you have to be a big buyer for this to be of much benefit and paying 20% tax upfront kind of takes the shine off that.  I foresee the Royal Mint scaling back their product lines in Silver as many British residents look to invest elsewhere.  It costs a lot of money to go through the set up for new products and why would they bother if half of their market finds something else to invest in such as bitcoin.

Now it's certainly true that some Americans, Europeans and Asians (also Ozzies) like to buy a few interesting Royal Mint products (which come at higher premiums lets not forget), but I do not believe that the bulk of their stacks are made up of Royal Mint products.  Why would they be?  There is no CGT relief for foreign residents and so no incentive to pay the higher premiums.  Ounce for ounce, it's usually better to buy the cheapest ounce you can.

The argument that many will switch to Royal Mint gold certainly does hold water.  However, even the smallest piece of bog standard gold is rather expensive these days for many people.  Clearly some people will continue to buy Silver and pay their tax upfront, some will make the switch to gold but many will simply find other things to invest in which aren't taxed upfront.  Tax upfront makes an investment very unappealing.  It will definitely result in a loss of sales for the Royal Mint which is why the smart thing for our government to do now would be to match the German margin scheme.  We no longer have to comply with driving business over to Germany and so the messed up disincentive to our market should be abolished.

For anyone that doubts that Germany is the major player in the physical bullion market I suggest a look at this German bullion dealer comparison site "gold.de".  Select any silver coin that you want and the sheer number of silver dealers listing it in Germany makes it quite apparent.  No one in Europe pays full VAT and most British residents won't either.  They will simply stop buying Royal Mint silver and the mint will be forced to mothball some of it's product lines.

1 hour ago, BackyardBullion said:

I think many many parcels will get "lost" in a pandemic with additional red tape. Not a good time to be importing precious metals

No point importing precious metals now.  We've been locked out of the cheap silver loophole until we can persuade our supposedly "fiscal conservative" government that charging British citizens more than anyone else in the world to own our own Royal mint legal tender is perverse.  I believe it may be possible to do this.  There is a case now to show that the Royal Mint will suffer a loss of business and that British Citizens will also suffer the loss of the ability to save in Silver competitively.  Such a case might eventually get debated in a new bill somewhere down the bottom of the list in a year or so from now.  But write to your Tory MP if you want it to happen.  Moaning here will make no difference.  The key is to emphasise that Tories support individuals saving for themselves ideologically.  They all know they do which is why this is the best approach. 

Edit: ask your Tory MP to pass your letter on to Rishy for his consideration.  He has a close relationship with the mint and may view their continued good business as valuable.  Point out that almost all silver in the EU is traded at greatly reduced or zero VAT for European citizens and that until the 1st almost all Royal Mint Silver bought by British Citizens has been bought under this scheme.  It is simply wrong for British Citizens to pay the most for their own legal tender.

20 minutes ago, BackyardBullion said:

Yep, this is exactly what was expected by myself and many others.

UK is closed for international business.

It's more onerous for international business which is smaller than £135 in value for sure but larger than that essentially nothing.

What is of more interest to me is how long the boogers will take to clear items through customs /duty etc.  The place they currently have with the American sounding name (Langley) which deals with imports takes a good 7-10 days to clear them.  I've had two parcels from the states stolen over the years inside that facility (missing without trace) and it's clearly no good.  I want to see changes from that.

As expected, the complaints over HMRC pushing the responsibility onto foreign small businesses to register and collect VAT on their behalf has broken.

It's going to be the same inside the EU shortly as well remember so I don't see this improving.  It looks like a VAT grab by everyone to be honest but ultimately it won't make much difference.  If they can make the system really easy then it won't be too onerous.  Let's see what the chancellor does in the upcoming budget.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55530721

What percentage of the Royal Mint's Silver product do people think is bought by British Investors/savers?

I suspect that a high percentage of it has been shipped on aircraft over to Europe before being sold back with limited VAT schemes.  Obviously now that this has all changed, I think the Royal Mint is going to find that demand for their silver products suffers a serious decline.  It's in fact likely in my opinion that the revenue will end up collecting far less in tax because of this drop in activity / loss of profit than they will make from the few who decide to pay the higher VAT inclusive prices from the mint.

Any of the remaining sales to foreign investors will of course be sold VAT free anyway with any foreign charges applied at import side meaning that HMRC doesn't get to collect 20% VAT on export sales.

The Royal Mint's silver business has grown precisely because of the VAT loopholes.  Now that they're gone I think their Silver business will have to be significantly reduced.  

Estonia didn't scrap it on Silver bullion.  It's the other way around actually where they have been under significant pressure from the EU to levy it on Silver bullion and it was due to be implemented ages ago.  Not sure why it got delayed.  There was a blog about the changes years ago on the Celtic gold website (Estonia based dealer).

Purchase tax was on luxury goods during the war.  After the war the UK took decidedly socialistic turn with centralisation being a key theme.  It may be true that it was added to many things by the time 1973 rolled around but it was developing in parallel to the EEC and their VAT schemes.  Neither are fair or honest methods of collecting tax but the purchase tax on luxury goods was able to at least make the claim that it didn't hit the poorest in society (who can't afford expensive luxuries).  VAT on the other hand significantly affects the poor because it is a tax on absolutely everything with only a tiny number of exceptions.  This is why it's such an immoral form of taxation.

VAT on legal tender is of course an entirely different issue and one which I feel dissuades people from saving / investing.  No responsible government should be dissuading it's citizens from behaving responsibility by saving for their futures and this is the angle that I would like to see taken to justify removing VAT off of all legal tender.

Just now, Martlet said:

Now I'm wondering what the rules are for goods worth over £135... I've re-read the VAT guidance and the support documents and seems completely overlooked.  So a company sending goods of £136 dont have to register with HMRC and VAT will be handled at point of import?

It appears that way.

2 minutes ago, Fadeingstar said:

Well depending how it goes I might have to start a go fund me to pay the charges/duty/VAT.

Are you planning to fill in the "numismatic interest" code for VAT?  Technically all coins and banknotes are of some numismatic interest so I'd be interested to hear how anyone trying that angle gets on.

1 hour ago, Guybrush said:

Great video BYB

I voted remain (by proxy, enough on that for now but my vote was remain)  Then after the vote was in I was all for Brexit, thats how democracy works.

But ...

These VAT issues are not a Brexit issue, this is something our corrupt government has done for us.  Removal of the £15 threshold, our government.  Forcing external businesses to register for VAT our government.

I think its unfair to put that of the people who voted Brexit but I completely get what your saying this friction-less free trade we was promised is not being provided by our own government.  HMRC is just seeing Brexit as a cash grab to line the coffers again.

I voted to leave an empire run by unelected technocrats with dangerous imperialistic ambitions.  I wish the same good fortune for all of the peoples of Europe to be free of that undemocratic tyranny.

What I didn't vote for was a VAT grab by this tired left wing Tory government.  In fact I didn't vote for the Tories at all precisely because of their left wing progressive social policies but that's beside the point!  They were never Brexiteers and have actually been the greatest obstacle to Brexit ever happening.  They're just political thieves who stole Brexit from the libertarian party (UKIP) to use as a way to hold onto power.   Going all in over the VAT on small transactions is rather silly of them.  It will very likely make the barrier to entry too high for a number of businesses which will really annoy the electorate as they're told "sorry we don't sell to the UK because of VAT administration".  Eventually the chancellor will probably have to deal with it somehow in a budget with a bit of complex red tape relief but at least our chancellor now has that ability again!

The positive to take away from all of this is that we can now blame our own government again.  Yay!!!  The further we get into clear waters, the less our politicians and civil servants can use the EU as an excuse to weasel their way out of living up to promises.  The blame can now be laid firmly at their feet once again, where it should always have belonged, and this makes them much more accountable to us as a result.  This really is a good thing long term.