As a Marketplace Facilitator, Discogs has a responsibility to calculate, collect and remit taxes in certain situations. Many times, this involves buyers purchasing goods from international markets. Unfortunately, complications can arise when customs agencies believe it is also their responsibility to collect taxes. The result can be that a buyer is forced to pay the same tax twice.
Discogs will directly assist buyers in recuperating this double charge where possible.
EU Buyers:
If you are a buyer in the EU and you have been asked to pay VAT a second time upon delivery, we will refund you the VAT charged on the original order. If you are the seller and your buyer is asking for a VAT refund, please refer them to Discogs Community Support and we will help them with the refund process.
To claim your refund, please contact our support team via our ticket form. We will require proof of payment for the second VAT charge. It should be some sort of receipt that clearly shows that VAT was paid, and it should have a date stamp as well. Please be sure to send a complete photo or scan of the whole document.
Once we have received your proof of double VAT payment, we will issue a refund via PayPal. In order for this to work, you will need to add your PayPal email address to your “seller settings” on Discogs, if you haven’t already done so. For further information on how to add your PayPal email address, please review the information here: How do I onboard the new PayPal payments solution?
We are unable to issue you a credit without that proof, as we are required by EU tax authorities to retain evidence of a second VAT charge If you did not keep proof of payment this time, please be sure to keep it in any future instance.
A few other important things to note:
- We can only refund the VAT charge associated with the Discogs order, and not any associated admin or postal fees.
- We are only able to refund in USD. The refund will arrive in your PayPal account in your local currency, but will be subject to PayPal’s conversion rates. We use a single, globally-recognized source for our exchange rates, which can differ from PayPal exchange rates. PayPal sets their own exchange rates. We will do our best to match these rates, but due to daily fluctuations, please be aware that it is unlikely that the amount you receive will exactly match the amount you paid. In almost all cases, the difference will be a matter of cents. We are unable to issue a second refund to make up the difference.
If you have any further questions about double VAT payments or how to claim a refund, please contact our support team.
UK Buyers:
HM Revenue & Customs has a mechanism in place to assist UK buyers in reclaiming excess charges. Please visit the following gov.uk page for more information.
At the bottom of this page, you will find a form to fill in to request a refund of VAT and/or custom charges.
For direct assistance with this matter, please contact HMRC or your tax advisor.