Are Goldsilver.be VAT free in 2019 for uk?

[silverback19]

Hi silver forum i am new to this forum and need some help with goldsiver.be. i am thinking of ordering from them but have only ever used europeanmint. Are they a legit dealer? as my computer says it is not safe when visiting their website? Plus does anyone know if you get charged VAT when getting items shipped to the uk?? Help would be appreciated

 

 

 

 

 

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[Norskgeld]

I got some silver from them 2 years ago because it was VAT free.

Shipping cost was about £17 if I remember so you need to buy a fair bit to make it worthwhile,

They are legit.

 

[silverback19]

Thanks, its not terrible shipping considering id usaully pay around £20 for european mint, i was just wondering if anything had changed with the vat situation because i can find a lot on here about them but nothing recent. thanks for your input

[Martlet]

The price you see on goldsilver is including any VAT, nothing more to pay. The delivery has gone up quite a bit, €29 now. 

Do use their € pricing and Transferwise/Revolut though as their £ exchange rate is poor.

 

[silverback19]

thanks Martlet that helps. i guess i would have to make my order rather larger to make up for the shipping cost, ive got some thinking to do, thanks again

[SilverSte]

i ordered some silver from them a few months ago, arrived in 3/4 days, was about £27 in shipping though. Silver was in good condition.

[sixgun]

Forum members have collectively ordered 100's thousands of EUR of silver from Goldsilver.be. i have bought a lot of silver from them - i have never had an issue - some have but as long as you pay for what you order you should not have any problems.

i would get a move on - although i suspect there will be a hitch and the UK will not leave the EU on 31st October 2019 - (or even ever leave the EU) you never know. When/If the UK leaves there will be full 20% on imported silver. There is some VAT in the Goldsilver.be price - it is not completely tax free as most say but they use a loop hole in the tax laws to keep tax low. As i understand the silver is technically sold 'second hand' and is sold as already tax paid. i have been in discussion with David from Goldsilver.be about this - he suggests they have a card up their sleeve so they can still get lower tax coins over to the UK - they may be exploiting the fact VAT on silver coins and medallions which are collectors' pieces of numismatic interest is 5%. Few know it is 5% and that includes the pirates at Customs.  

[Miganto]

Can you source this fact please?  Interesting, in a worrying way

"When/If the UK leaves there will be full 20% on imported silver "

[TheBeast]

2 minutes ago, Miganto said:

Can you source this fact please?  Interesting, in a worrying way

"When/If the UK leaves there will be full 20% on imported silver "

ouwch

[sixgun]

8 minutes ago, Miganto said:

Can you source this fact please?  Interesting, in a worrying way

"When/If the UK leaves there will be full 20% on imported silver "

Silver is taxed at 20% VAT in the UK - this is a fact. If you import silver from anywhere on the planet it will have VAT levied at 20%. At the moment being in the 'Free Trade' environment of the EU we are dodging this by importing it from the continent. As i say there is 5% VAT on collectors' pieces of numismatic interest - in my opinion any silver coins which are priced much above the cost of the silver is not plain bullion and you are collecting it b/c it has numismatic interest. Some on the forum has claimed the tax back - it hasn't been much of an issue b/c members have been getting cheaper silver from Germany, Estonia and Belgium. 

The pirates will steal your treasure - never think otherwise.

[Miganto]

2 minutes ago, sixgun said:

Silver is taxed at 20% VAT in the UK - this is a fact. If you import silver from anywhere on the planet it will have VAT levied at 20%.

Is this not the case now, before the UK leaves the EU?

So i'm unsure where "When/If the UK leaves there will be full 20% on imported silver " comes from.

[sixgun]

33 minutes ago, Miganto said:

Is this not the case now, before the UK leaves the EU?

So i'm unsure where "When/If the UK leaves there will be full 20% on imported silver " comes from.

The silver from Germany, Goldsilver.be, Estonia doesn't get stopped at the border and 20% VAT slapped on. The VAT is deemed to be paid. Nothing extra to pay. The silver is sold 'second hand' except to Estonia which has no VAT on silver coins depending on how it gets shipped to you. None of these dodges will work when the UK escapes the EU's clutches.

When the UK comes out of the EU - packages from Germany and Goldsilver.be will likely be stopped and will get 20% VAT slapped on top. There has been endless talk about this on the forum. Backyard Bullion who organised group orders has stopped doing them now for this very reason - he does not wish to be importing £20k of silver and find he gets thumped with a VAT bill for £4k. @BackyardBullion

[Miganto]

I thought the BYB importing would have been stopped due to being unaware of what would happen and so instead of risking everyone's money, wait until after Oct 31st to see the deal that is / is not in place and deal with it accordingly.  I thought what would happen after the end of Oct was still an unknown.  I wasn't aware a deal with important precious metals had been confirmed so far between the UK and Europe.  Now I am!

Seems I was wrong - Thanks for clarifying.

 

A source would still be great but i'll take your word on it due to the nature of the site and my relative naivety here.

[BackyardBullion]

9 minutes ago, Miganto said:

I thought the BYB importing would have been stopped due to being unaware of what would happen and so instead of risking everyone's money, wait until after Oct 31st to see the deal that is / is not in place and deal with it accordingly.  I thought what would happen after the end of Oct was still an unknown.  I wasn't aware a deal with important precious metals had been confirmed so far between the UK and Europe.  Now I am!

Seems I was wrong - Thanks for clarifying.

 

A source would still be great but i'll take your word on it due to the nature of the site and my relative naivety here.

GS.be are legit.

We used to use them a lot for group orders, probably placed over £50,000 with them over the course of about 18 months 

But.....I have found and continue to find EU mint to be the superior dealer.

As regards the current group orders - they are open until 22nd September and then we wait and see doing the brexit dance of "who the hell knows what's going to happen"

[Stu]

Folks are saying the delivery cost has gone up markedly of late with GS.be. I hope they've changed courier, have listened to folk and have stopped using yodel in the UK?

[Magritte]

It seems to me that nothing has been confirmed in regards what happens post Brexit, especially the Irish solution (whatever that entails) could be advantageous having a precious metals business there with easy access across an open porous border with vat free coins one side of the pond 🤔

[Foe]

Last time I ordered (june) it was delivered by FedEx

[Gildeon]

4 hours ago, Stu said:

Folks are saying the delivery cost has gone up markedly of late with GS.be. I hope they've changed courier, have listened to folk and have stopped using yodel in the UK?

I have stopped using them when the cost of shipping to Ireland jumped from 20€ in the past to 30€ last year and few months ago to 40€!

You need to order several hundreds of euros to offset their better prices. For my orders, usually between 200 and 400, I have found other sources more cost effective. 

[daca]

50,00 € (tax incl.)  to ship 3  1oz coins, orders can only be shipped within 8 working days of receipt of payment

[Jvw]

On 13/09/2019 at 23:03, sixgun said:

.......e UK escapes the EU's clutches.

When the UK comes out of the EU - packages from Germany and Goldsilver.be will likely be stopped and will get 20% VAT slapped on top. There has been endless talk abou.....

And will also go for exporting silver out of the country to Europe for instance i take it ? 

Will that mean that the Queens Beasts will suddenly go up 20% in price over night?

[sixgun]

You can export goods - they should be export free of VAT. Value Added Tax an end buyer's tax. Each entity in a supply chain is charged VAT - if they are VAT registered they can claim this back - only the end buyer should get hit with unreclaimable VAT. So if you are exporting the goods the VAT can be reclaimed if you are VAT registered. 

The German rules on VAT is customs historically charged 8% or something like that. They are still charging 8% - so a dealer imports coins from usually the US and gets hit with 8% VAT at the border. Now normally they would claim that VAT back but then when they sold the coins they would have to levy 19% VAT. But they aren't - they sell the coins are second hand VAT paid. That way they save 11% VAT. 

It will not make any difference to the price of Queen's Beast coins sold by UK dealers - they have always had to charge the VAT. It will not make any difference to QB's sold in Europe, including the Netherlands - the coins are exported free of VAT. The difference is UK collectors will no longer be able to buy low VAT and VAT free (Estonia) from EU countries and import them into the country without the customs charging 20% VAT. 

[KevjustKev]

As some have mentioned VAT when coming into the country, yep fine. However what about coins minted in the UK? How can 'you' import something that was made in the country you are importing to? Also if by pointing out that any coins like the Brit's are (I believe) legal tender. If trying to say that they are not that should not mean all the money you have on you is also going to have to be taxed. Can't have it both ways surely, which of course they will.

[sixgun]

2 hours ago, tallthinkev said:

As some have mentioned VAT when coming into the country, yep fine. However what about coins minted in the UK? How can 'you' import something that was made in the country you are importing to? Also if by pointing out that any coins like the Brit's are (I believe) legal tender. If trying to say that they are not that should not mean all the money you have on you is also going to have to be taxed. Can't have it both ways surely, which of course they will.

The view of HMRC is that the 1oz silver Britannia is not bought as legal tender but as silver. This of course is obviously true - no-one in their right mind would pay say £18 for a coin they wish to use as legal tender with a face value of £2. These coins have VAT levied on them as silver and so have 20% levied. When goods are exported from the UK to a non EU country the VAT on the goods is reclaimed - they are in effect sold VAT free overseas. When the goods are exported to EU countries the VAT is charged by the country it comes from - its arrives with you VAT paid. A member bought a coin from the French mint last week - all taxes paid. The rate of VAT should be at the rate of the country the goods are going to. So goods exported to Germany from the UK should have 19% VAT applied and those sold to the UK from Germany have 20% applied - it doesn't always work that way but that is what is supposed to happen. The 'VAT free' silver many in the UK buy from EU dealers is actually sold second hand - VAT paid. The dealers exploit a VAT loop hole where import VAT in Germany for example on silver is something like 8%. Normally a dealer would reclaim this when they sold it and charge the 19% German rate but they don't reclaim the VAT and sell the coins as second hand VAT paid using the marginal rate rules where VAT is only charged on their profit. This second hand loop hole won't work anymore when the UK leaves the EU and so we will face 20% VAT - the dealers however should strip out the import VAT they have already paid and sell the coins as new, so the hit should not be as big as many anticipate.

[Pipers]

18 minutes ago, sixgun said:

The view of HMRC is that the 1oz silver Britannia is not bought as legal tender but as silver. This of course is obviously true - no-one in their right mind would pay say £18 for a coin they wish to use as legal tender with a face value of £2. These coins have VAT levied on them as silver and so have 20% levied. When goods are exported from the UK to a non EU country the VAT on the goods is reclaimed - they are in effect sold VAT free overseas. When the goods are exported to EU countries the VAT is charged by the country it comes from - its arrives with you VAT paid. A member bought a coin from the French mint last week - all taxes paid. The rate of VAT should be at the rate of the country the goods are going to. So goods exported to Germany from the UK should have 19% VAT applied and those sold to the UK from Germany have 20% applied - it doesn't always work that way but that is what is supposed to happen. The 'VAT free' silver many in the UK buy from EU dealers is actually sold second hand - VAT paid. The dealers exploit a VAT loop hole where import VAT in Germany for example on silver is something like 8%. Normally a dealer would reclaim this when they sold it and charge the 19% German rate but they don't reclaim the VAT and sell the coins as second hand VAT paid using the marginal rate rules where VAT is only charged on their profit. This second hand loop hole won't work anymore when the UK leaves the EU and so we will face 20% VAT - the dealers however should strip out the import VAT they have already paid and sell the coins as new, so the hit should not be as big as many anticipate.

I would like to add, if the Conservative Party wins the General election (and i think they will) it is highly likely VAT will be targeted by the the Conservative party for extra revenue so they can cut income tax.  IMO we could easy see 25% VAT even higher within 5 years maybe up to 30% VAT.  Also do not be surprised if we see VAT on physical GOLD delivery, though this will increase smuggling from the EU.  

[Magritte]

Smuggling is one of the oldest trades going so would not surprise me if a healthy black market of gold/ silver smuggling to avoid heavy tax charges would increase post Brexit 🤔