Hello everyone.
I had placed an order to Shire Bulbs and another one to the SA Bulb Company with a colleague before the orders from the PSB were placed, so I have my bulbs (photo attached).
Overall it all went OK but we had an issue with VAT and I think it is advisable to ask Leigh if she can give directions to DHL (I assume we are going to choose DHL, as we had the bulbs delivered in France within 4 days, after being almost 10 days sitting in the premises of Mailwise (Mail-lazy?), once they finally shipped they would have taken three weeks more to get to the EU!!)
I told Leigh about it and got no answer but I'm getting used to that when I email her. The % of VAT is calculated using the total amount in the invoice, it's not a fixed amount like the phytosanitary tax, so in big orders it can be quite considerable.
"Hi, Leigh, ------ has the bulbs, it was really fast, thanks. There has been an issue with DHL as they declared the contents as "dried flowers"which was charged a VAT of 20% instead of declaring "living plants", which are charged 10% only.
By doing it that way, the import tax was 10% and not 5.1% and though we skipped the phytosanitary tax of 31.50 euro, overall we paid more in taxes.
It seems that DHL does this randomly (we had a previous order from another supplier declared as Tonka beans - Dipteryx odorata, I had to look it up), but I thought that they had enough experience to be aware that bulbs are living plants, why else do they carry a phyto?
Maybe you can try to make it clear for the European orders from the PSB (I don't know how it goes in the USA).
Anyway, ------- complained to DHL, we might have some money back. [Note: no answer from DHL]
Finally it seems that if the invoice comes in ZAR, the VAT will be lower, at least that was what happened with the other seller. This is something you don't have to know, I suppose".
I had placed an order to Shire Bulbs and another one to the SA Bulb Company with a colleague before the orders from the PSB were placed, so I have my bulbs (photo attached).
Overall it all went OK but we had an issue with VAT and I think it is advisable to ask Leigh if she can give directions to DHL (I assume we are going to choose DHL, as we had the bulbs delivered in France within 4 days, after being almost 10 days sitting in the premises of Mailwise (Mail-lazy?), once they finally shipped they would have taken three weeks more to get to the EU!!)
I told Leigh about it and got no answer but I'm getting used to that when I email her. The % of VAT is calculated using the total amount in the invoice, it's not a fixed amount like the phytosanitary tax, so in big orders it can be quite considerable.
"Hi, Leigh, ------ has the bulbs, it was really fast, thanks. There has been an issue with DHL as they declared the contents as "dried flowers"which was charged a VAT of 20% instead of declaring "living plants", which are charged 10% only.
By doing it that way, the import tax was 10% and not 5.1% and though we skipped the phytosanitary tax of 31.50 euro, overall we paid more in taxes.
It seems that DHL does this randomly (we had a previous order from another supplier declared as Tonka beans - Dipteryx odorata, I had to look it up), but I thought that they had enough experience to be aware that bulbs are living plants, why else do they carry a phyto?
Maybe you can try to make it clear for the European orders from the PSB (I don't know how it goes in the USA).
Anyway, ------- complained to DHL, we might have some money back. [Note: no answer from DHL]
Finally it seems that if the invoice comes in ZAR, the VAT will be lower, at least that was what happened with the other seller. This is something you don't have to know, I suppose".