According to the VAT rules applicable up until 1 July 2021, no import VAT has to be paid for commercial goods of a value up to EUR 22.

The new VAT e-commerce rules abolish this provision as of 1 July 2021. Thus, from 1 July 2021, all commercial goods imported into the EU from a third country or third territory is subject to VAT irrespective of their value.

This means that ANY book, CD or vinyl purchased outside EU will be a subject to additional taxation.

I made a trick and placed 20€ CD in the shopping cart on cdjapan. Shipment was set almost on the minimum (airmail + tracking) as ~10€. VAT was not collected at the sales point in Japan. At least at this moment cdjapan (unlike amazon) does not provide this option

The customs will collect ~7€ in VAT and local post office will charge me 2.76€ for bank transfer and 12€ of 'processing, admission and clearance' fees.

Thus the total will be ~30€ (CD+S&H) + ~22€ (VAT + post office charges).
Let's round it up to ~50€ because VAT is different in EU (between 17% and 27%) and post offices could charge you differently (between 10€ and 14€).

Japanese proxy services apparently do not collect VAT on the sales point too. This means that either you will pay a lot to customs and local postal services or those companies (cdjapan included) will go out of business pretty soon.

So it is the Eu that is causing this mess.
I remember them charging vat not just on the item but also on the postage. I tried to avoid their thievery by having a friend of mine in Tokyo repack some items and assigning it a low value. Then the bastards raised the value and made me pay even more.
I'd love to take them to court for these practices but as a normal citizen you can't afford to go to court. So that's it. To get a Japanese item we'll soon be.paying thrice the shop price.
One shouldn't wish for others to go to hell, or get hit by a bus, but sometimes it's hard not to do so. I just don't understand where all this hatred against ordinary citizens comes from.

That is not only EU.

It is true, they charge VAT on the total, i.e. item price + S&H. This is regulation that was set by the law. I was talking about different thing.

Amazon is taking care about VAT and custom processing. They charge you on the site, at the moment you pay them. VAT is calculated and added to the price during checkout. They also sort out custom clearance. The parcel will come through customs without any actions from your side.

Apparently, ebay and discogs will follow this pattern soon.

But cdjapan and different Japanese proxy services do not collect EU VAT at the sales point. For some reason they did not (or do not want to) accept EU Import One-Step Shop system. Thus, it is your burden to pay all extra fees to locals. I do not mind VAT, we all pay it in the shops here. But those additional 14€ to local post office for processing is a bit crazy. With all those extra fees the price for a Japanese CD in EU can actually triple the price in Japan.

Sure the story will be completely different if the price of the item overshoots 150€ custom tax-free limit.

It seems that amazon co.jp is out of the list for EU customers (at least for some time).
They do not collect Impost Fee Deposit (or VAT deposit) for EU customers anymore. I contacted them with a question regarding EU VAT and this is what I got
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Thank you for patiently waiting for our report.

I confirmed that at this point it is clear that Amazon Japan is responsible to take international VAT collection for United Kingdom and Norway, hence for Portugal, shipping carrier may ask you for VAT when they deliver the item but in that case please let us know and we will check what we can do for it.

Please refer to VAT on E-Commerce:
[www.amazon.co.jp]

Again, we apologize for the inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your understanding and cooperation in advance.
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I experimented with different EU shipping addresses (Spanish, German, French) and got no Import Fee Deposit listed on checkout page too.

Thus, both big names cdjapan and amazon Japan currently are not with EU IOSS. And this sucks.
Hope they will resolve this issue soon. Otherwise for amazon we'll have to pay not only Japanese Sale Tax during purchase but also EU VAT and local post office service/clearance fees upon arrival. That will make purchase of one CD or LP from Japan completely economically unreasonable.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2021-07-03 11:30 by ironbelly.

A message of hope from cdjapan
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Thank you for your inquiry.

Yes, we confirm that we are currently preparing our website for the new VAT rules in the EU. Our prices still do not include VAT as of today but we are definitely
going to be including the VAT in our prices as a registered retailer.

We hope to include VAT in our prices within this month and when we do, we will make sure that you will notice it on our website.


Sincerely,
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So let us wait a bit. Anyway, there are no new releases of The Rolling Stones on the horizon .