Comment · Wed, January 13, 2021 · ND Owner
UK police seized shipment of phenibut
Original post in this thread
Catterstrope · 27 points
Just a warning for any other uk buyers, I ordered 180 phenibut capsules on the 31st but once it got into the uk it seemed to be delayed for a while until i got a letter from the police today saying it has been seized, I've just had a conversation with the officer in charge of the case and was told that while it is legal to posess it is also illegal to import it, fortunately they aren't pressing charges or investigating further.
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I'm mainly just confused as some sources say differently about the legality and I have even seen posts on this subreddit about it being totally fine and that people usually get their orders so keep this in mind when you decide to buy.
What they were answering
juantoconero · 2 points
It also makes no sense since each eu country has a different VAT % and rules but if you buy between different countries intra-EU the buyers just pay the VAT in the seller's location, so there are money saving strategies available there. For example in Spain, supplements are considered food and as such have a VAT of 10% (vs the standard 21%), BUT a lot of supplement stores here classify them as medicines, which weirdly is laxly defined, and only charge 4%.
The problem is they are funneling the end users towards demanding a solution to the customs/VAT problem.
Until about two years ago, nothing was stopped/charged VAT, no matter the amount declared. Since then they stop anything over 22€.... The worst is that starting July 1, 2021 (unless it's delayed again due to covid-19) every single shipment entering the EU will be stopped by customs and charged VAT from the first cent of the value. Not only that but each postal service/courier company charges the recipient 15-30€ in fees for customs processing irregardless of the package value. And the EU does nothing about it! Not only that, but the EU considers shipping cost as part of the purchase price and charge VAT on it!
So their goal is for hoards of angry consumers to push online sellers to provide solutions to this nightmare...
The real push is towards prepayment of VAT through the shipping companies. iHerb is already doing th…
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · ND Owner
Yeah, it seems like a mess. The same thing happened here, too. That Supreme Court case forced all companies here to shoulder the burden of 50 state's tax laws. So now we have to pay for software to calculate everything based on the customer location, and we have to remit taxes to those states. Every state is different rates and processes, so it is a huge hassle. If the federal government wants a nationwide sales tax, they should be the ones running it and providing companies the guidance on it. Letting each state make their own rules, then imposing the enforcement of those on individual companies seems crazy to me.