Brexit moan...

So... posting a book from Brexitland to ANYWHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD is far from easy.

There are taxes and import charges and different VAT charges in every country and we nolonger have an agreement with any of them. That of course is fair enough, I have no problem with taxes and charges and import duties or whatever in theory, BUT in practice, these things generate a lot of confusing extra forms, and charges for managing all of these which might make sending a book to someone in Europe absurdly expensive and practically impossible. This is what is meant by Brexit killing small business.

There are various forms to fill out about country of origin, a special EORI number which is an international VAT number, a code, a description. This is all also fine of course, EXCEPT that again there is no clarity as to what the meaning of these things are or what impact they will have.

And then, when it gets to its destination, the person picking it up might have to pay local VAT (there's no VAT on books in UK, but there are different amounts in different countries in EU as far as I can tell) or Import duty, or import VAT (I haven't really been able to work these out yet) plus a charge. Now the VAT might be nothing - 5% in Italy I think - but the handling charge might be anything up to £20, as far as I can tell from what people have told me.

So what to do? I don't know. I don't know what the significance of all the forms are. There are ways to pay the VAT here in advance but that is incredibly involved as far as I can see and not cost efficient for posting a few books. So I'm doing a trial. I've sent one to Aga in Poland and I hope I've got it all right but who knows. We will see what happens.

I might need to take a whole load to Europe next time I go (it looks like you're allowed to take up to £400 worth of goods) and post them from there, then.