Frequent tax changes in Europe in the new year? Sellers may have to bear the costs

It’s the first day of work this year, but the European market has been hit by a series of tax news, and sellers may have to pay additional operating costs for this!

The first is a tax that sellers are familiar with - France officially restarted the collection of digital tax . Last August, we reported that the UK had to start collecting a 2% digital tax due to financial constraints. As expected, Amazon raised the service fees of the UK site by 2% , including commissions, monthly storage fees, and FBA delivery fees.

At that time, we predicted that European countries would start with digital tax one after another, but due to pressure from the United States, there might be a delay. Now France has forcibly started digital tax under pressure and may face punitive tariffs from the United States on French goods (handbags, cosmetics, etc.).

Although Amazon has not yet released an official announcement of the changes, it will definitely increase the various service fees of the French site this time. The increase will be consistent with the digital tax rate (3%) announced by France. At that time, the commission, monthly storage fee and FBA delivery fee of the French site will increase by 3% proportionally (for example: the original commission rate is 15%, and after an increase of 3% it will be 15.45% ).

The magnitude of this increase cannot be felt from just one item. If the sales are 100 euros and the fee rate is 15%, it is actually only 0.45 euros. But when all other fees are added together, it will be a bit painful. For example, the monthly storage fee and FBA delivery fee are the big costs that must be paid every month, which are almost most of the costs except for the ordering cost and the first leg. It is still very uncomfortable to increase them by 3%. An account with monthly sales of more than 10,000 euros can easily lose a hundred euros. If the delivery fee and storage fee account for a high proportion, it will be even more terrible. Sellers with relatively limited profit margins must plan well.

In addition, Europe is also beginning to levy another magical tax.

The plastic packaging tax established by the European Union last year was officially levied on January 1 this year. Disposable plastic packaging is taxed at a rate of 800 euros (about 6,400 yuan) per ton . EU member states need to collect taxes and fees on time and submit them to the EU for coordination. It is estimated that this tax will bring the EU 4 billion to 8 billion euros in revenue each year , alleviating the EU's fiscal deficit caused by the epidemic.

Germany, which was the first to popularize the packaging law, took the lead in following this policy, stating that the producers and manufacturers of plastic packaging, the companies that purchase and use the packaging , and the consumers who purchase goods with plastic packaging are all required to bear a corresponding proportion of taxes.

Did you see the red part? Users of plastic packaging also have to bear taxes, which is what affects our cross-border sellers. Sellers who have registered for the Packaging Law should know that the Packaging Law requires sellers to report the weight of the packaging in a timely manner (add me zyqmda to receive the detailed explanation of the Packaging Law). If the seller uses plastic packaging, then he can pay taxes directly according to the data of the Packaging Law.

Similarly, the UK has also started to collect taxes on plastic packaging, but the situation is slightly different from that in Germany, because the UK does not have packaging laws similar to Germany to require sellers, so it has introduced a separate tax method for plastic packaging, including the following points:

1. The tax rate for plastic packaging containing less than 30% recycled content is £200 per tonne;

2. Companies that produce and/or import less than 10 tons of plastic packaging within 12 months will be exempted;

4. Exemptions for small-volume plastic packaging producers and importers;

5. The party liable for tax needs to register with HMRC;

You can see the second point, if the volume is not large, it can be exempted from tax in the UK. In fact, this article limits the taxable group to large companies that consume and manufacture plastic packaging.

However, the UK and the EU do not agree on the collection standards. In particular, sellers who have registered for packaging law in Germany must declare and pay taxes in accordance with official requirements, otherwise it may affect normal sales.

As for other European sites, such as Spain and France, we still have to wait for the specific taxation strategies to be announced before we can determine the impact on our sellers. Sellers on the German site must always pay attention to the news of the packaging law and agents. If you encounter such a situation, you can confirm the news and pay the tax at the official packaging law Zentrale Stelle .