Since 2015 RAVAS has been campaigning for Online Marketplaces to collect VAT. Working with VATfraud.org in 2015 £1 billion a year in lost VAT was identified, a figure that contradicted the £350m per year figure produced by HMRC in 2017. In 2021 legislation was finally introduced that made Online Marketplaces collect VAT and in the first year £1.4 billion in VAT was collected. However, the legislation only extended to businesses located outside of the UK and it was immediat

After a decade in the freight industry and a career in online retail stretching back to 1994, I can speak with authority on the real-world impact of tax exemptions designed for a pre-ecommerce world. In recent weeks, I've seen economists and government advisers such as David Henig  and Ben Ramanauskas argue that removing the de minimis exemption creates a 'barrier to free trade' that harms UK business and consumers. They point to U.S. President Trump's removal of the policy

I’ve been asked to give a presentation this coming Wednesday at the Autumn National and 40th Anniversary gathering of the Automated Customs and International Trade Association in London. In preparing for it, I’ve been digging through my archives—and in doing so, I stumbled upon a splendid piece of nonsense from 2006, courtesy of Dawn Primarolo MP, then Paymaster General in the Labour Government. Dawn Primarolo was responding to questions in an adjournment debate in the run u

Much has been made of improvements made to the way in which Companies House and HMRC investigate and deal with online tax fraudsters. We...

As the Government undertakes a review of Online Marketplace regulations and the de minimis threshold, it is concerning to observe that,...