Importing from Sweden?

[TimberCutterDartmoor]

Thinking of importing a machine from Sweden...

 

25% vat - reclaimable?

 

Any other red tape?

 

Cheers.

[Ty Unnos]

Regarding VAT I dont think you pay the Swedish rate. If you are VAT registered they should sell to you without VAT but then you pay (and reclaim) the UK VAT rate on your VAT return.

 

But I have never done this so not 100% sure!

 

Info here:

 

VAT between the UK and Sweden

[TimberCutterDartmoor]

Thanks for that.

 

Why is the same machine in Sweden half the price of UK / Eire / Europe ?!

[Ty Unnos]

I dont know why - but it is!

 

I recently imported a piece of machinery from Germany and it was totally painless and about half the price of the UK.

 

I suspect we are just paying too much as there is not enough competiton - but as it gets easier to import machines direct from Europe and cut out the 'middle man' prices will start to come down.

 

What are you thinking of importing?

[difflock]

To my knowledge.

If you are VAT registered and supply the appropriate details.

There is no VAT to pay.

The item is effectively "zero rated"

Otherwise one merely pays the VAT on top of the import duty (as below)

There may be a small %age import duty on CIF (cost, insurance and freight) value .

On a bandsawmill this is 2.7%, figures generally in the low single fig %ages.

[TimberCutterDartmoor]

What are you thinking of importing?

 

Forest Machine

[ArthurBottlesworth]

I imported snowblower from Germany a few years ago

Reclaimed vat in normal way -- but they did query it

 

My son buys stuff from holland regularily and gets charged vat in normal way too

Haven't done vat return for that co yet,

[jarnii]

What websites are you guys using to look for machines of any king really I'm guessing if your buying you have done the research and would have some good links. Not meaning to derail your thread I would just find it useful. Thanks

[codlasher]

@T C D. The contractors that I last employed to do the softwood/hardwood thinning had valet machinery both the harvester with rotating cab (goldfish bowl) and the forwarder.

 

They told me that they would never consider buying a second hand machine from the UK for many reasons. Both these machines came from Norway. If I recall correctly there is a MOT type test for timber machinery in that country and this results in a very high quality second-hand market for such machines.

The harvester arrived headless but they have a leaning to the Viking head and computer being a very simple piece of quality engineering. I was impressed with this set up as it was very versatile cutting both large softwood and a range of predominately beech hardwood for the firewood market. Excepting the usual pipe breaks I only had to weld one thing on the head. Which, considering the tonnage put-through, was impressive.

I would agree with your looking to the scandinavian countries for a better quality of machine.

codlasher.

[codlasher]

Read in valet....VALMET machines. Apologies the settings will not allow me to edit after a certain period.

I also added that the VAT implications will be similar to the UK in that you will be exempt having filled in the correct export forms.

codlasher