Welcome to a new InTheMail, the series that will touch both your passion for electronics and your bank account at the same time. And I have some news regarding the import of our packages from aliexpress into the EU. As you may have noticed Aliexpress started collecting VAT according to the new IOSS system and you would expect that an EU member country would have the system in place to process these packages because you know they asked for this system, they created it so you would expect the would have the system ready.
But it’s a complete shit show over here, there is a double taxation happening, the Postal company here slaps a 1.6 EUR fee for processing packages and also collects VAT according to the value declared by the sender on the package, even though you already paid VAT and you can prove you paid it with the invoice that Aliexpress provides.
When asked why we have to pay the VAT twice, the Postal service said, they have the system in place to process packages coming through the IOSS system automatically and avoid double taxation but the customs authority doesn’t have it’s system ready, hence the issue of double taxation. And you can guess what the customs authority said when I asked them why we are being taxed twice, they said, it’s all good, we shouldn’t be taxed because tax has been collected already and yet the postal service is not releasing the packages until the fees are paid.
It seems that right now, the only way to avoid double taxation is if you do the import papers yourself or if you use a 3rd party company that offers those services but their fees start at about 50EUR per import and the forms aren’t exactly easy to do so yeah, cheapest option right now is to just pay the postal service fees and get the packages. I’ll share some more info once I have it but right now, at least here in Romania, it’s as bad as it can be and the authorities don’t seem to have a solution. But enough ranting, let’s get on with the items I received.