CREG Subscriptions to the EU
Please read this notice if ...
- You are about to order a subscription the CREG journal, or
- You have received a CREG journal and had to pay a customs fee, or
- Your CREG journal has been held by your Customs authority, awaiting a payment from
you.
We are having problems shipping the CREG journal to addresses in the European Union. This is
because the EU is demanding a VAT payment on the item, which has to be collected from the
recipient. As well as the VAT there is usually a €10 handling fee. This page explains what to
do next – how to obtain the CREG journal, and how to get a refund on your undelivered
package.
Click/Tap a link or scroll on down.
Summary
In July 2021, the EU abolished a scheme called Low Value Consignment Relief (LVCR),
which allowed goods worth less than €22 to avoid border checks on entry to the EU. Now, in
2023, we are seeing the effects of that decision, with all goods of any value that are
imported into the EU being held by the Customs authorities until the recipient has paid the tax
and a handling charge. This is obviously impractical – you do not want to pay an extra
€10 for each copy of the CREG journal. This web page explains what you can do.
Option 1: Buy an Ebay Subscription Voucher
Instead of paying for a standard CREG subscription, you can pay £8 for a
voucher to use at Ebay. The advantages are ...
- You can buy your journals from Ebay, which avoids the problem of EU VAT because Ebay will
collect the VAT from you.
- You can claim a £2 discount each time you buy a journal at Ebay.
- You get a 'free' login and password, valid for 12 months, for you to use to read the
journal online.
- You are on our list of subscribers, so we will email you when each journal is
published.
This option is not available on our online order form (yet) so please go to
BCRA Bookshop (Misc. payments) and pay £8 there. In the
customer message box, please type CREG EU Voucher Subscription.
We will email you each time a journal is published. You should then buy it from our Ebay
shop. Search your local Ebay store for CREG journal from the seller
David_in_Leeds or go to ebay.co.uk/usr/david_in_leeds. When we
receive your order from Ebay we will post your journal using the tracking information supplied by
Ebay, which will ensure that it gets through your country's Customs inspection successfully.
Option 2: Just go to Ebay
You do not need to buy a voucher from us - you can just go to Ebay and buy a journal whenever
you like. But if you are not on our list of subscribers we will not be able to tell you when a
journal is published. Also, you will not have an online login to allow you to read the journal
online.
Option 3: Ask for a Refund
If you do not want to pay the requested Customs fee for your package, you can reject it. If
you do that – or you do not collect it from your delivery office – it should
eventually be returned to us. We can then issue you with a refund, or move you over to our Ebay
voucher scheme.
.
Occasionally Asked Questions
My shipment has been withheld by Customs – should I accept it?
You can, of course, just pay the customs fee if you want to. As noted above, the Customs fee
comprises the VAT due on the item, plus a handling charge. However, a better option might be to
refuse the item, which should mean that it is returned to the sender. Once you have
done that we can try something else ...
How should I buy the CREG journal?
Our recommendation is that you buy a copy though our Ebay Shop.
Ebay will collect any tax that you need to pay. When we print
the postage label, the bar-code will indicate that your VAT has been paid, and the item should get
through your Customs check without any problem.
- To find our Ebay shop, first go to the Ebay website in your local jurisdiction (e.g.
ebay.fr, ebay.de etc.) so that Ebay 'understands' about your local VAT and can
display the adjusted price. If you do not have a local Ebay site, try ebay.com. If you
order from ebay.com or ebay.co.uk the tax should be added when you pay, when Ebay
'realises' that you live outside the UK.
- Search for CREG Journal, which should take you to the pages of the Ebay user
David _in_Leeds, which belong to David Gibson, the CREG Treasurer.
- Look for the latest issue of the CREG journal.
- Click the Buy It Now button.
What does the Journal cost at Ebay?
Our prices in the Ebay shop are approximately the same as buying directly from us,
which is currently £3.50 for the journal, plus postage of £3.50, which
is a total of £28/year. You will have to pay your local VAT on the total amount
(including postage).
That is too expensive – I would like a refund instead
If/when your unclaimed journal is received by us (it can take eight weeks) we can give you a
refund on your subscription. We can refund your current issue and up to three future
issues that you have paid for – all at 25% of the total annual subscription that you
paid.
Why is this so complicated? I do not have problems with other shipments from outside my
country
That is because you paid the VAT when you made the online transaction! The seller (or the
online portal) then transferred the tax to your government. BCRA/CREG cannot do that without
joining an EU trading scheme called IOSS, but we are far too small an organisation to be able to
afford the IOSS membership fee. Ebay, Amazon, and all the large online retailers are members of
the scheme. Parcel couriers are also members of IOSS so there would not be a problem if we used a
parcels courier, but the CREG journal is not heavy enough for that to be economical; and Royal
Mail (and other international shippers of 'letters') are prevented, by international agreement,
from collecting taxes due in a destination country.
Is this a consequence of Brexit?
It is because the EU (and the UK too) has abolished the Low Value Consignment Relief
scheme, which was a decision un-related to Brexit. However, if the UK was still in the European
Customs Union then the problem would not arise so, to that extent, it is a Brexit problem.
Why do you not mark the Customs Declaration as 'gift' or 'documents'
Because the CREG journal is not a gift, and neither is it a 'document' within the
meaning of the Customs regulations. And, in any case, gifts are still subject to VAT.
Further Details
If you really want to read more information, please go to
EU Shipping Notice in Shipping Charges / Discounts /
Methods of Payment
Notice to Customers
When a CREG journal is returned, CREG staff should send an email saying ...
A CREG journal has been returned to us from your address, marked
"refused" or "unclaimed". This was because there was a Customs payment
due on it. Please visit http://bcra.org.uk/bookshop/creg_subscriptions.html to find
out how to re-order your journal through a more reliable delivery route,
and how to obtain a refund.
