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Is time about to be called on cheap Chinese imports?
2 November 2015 | by It is a known fact that China has been cutting through import red tape for many years now. We have all purchased Baofeng's, cheap electronic components, tablets, computer hardware and many other items that we all have bought directly from China to benefit our radio hobby.
It appears this activity has not gone unnoticed by the UK VAT man, and some traders are complaining about this practice too that they can't fairly compete, could the door be about to close!
There are quite a few articles on this doing the rounds today, this is the best one I have found that sums it all up: http://www.pressexaminer.com/uk-troubled-by-chinese-sellers-on-ebay-and-amazon-as-christmas-approaches/77476
Steve, G1KQH, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from England. Contact him at [email protected].It appears this activity has not gone unnoticed by the UK VAT man, and some traders are complaining about this practice too that they can't fairly compete, could the door be about to close!
Time to Stock up Quick!
There are quite a few articles on this doing the rounds today, this is the best one I have found that sums it all up: http://www.pressexaminer.com/uk-troubled-by-chinese-sellers-on-ebay-and-amazon-as-christmas-approaches/77476
8 Responses to “Is time about to be called on cheap Chinese imports?”
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Not to mention these radios are very trashy on a service monitor. According to the ARRL the test they did on Chinese radios had a high fail rate for clean signals.
Dale,
Amen. Same thing I was thinking. I read the same article. However I have several of the trashy radios. So what to do?
In addition to the risk of poor quality and no guarantee, could some of these radios be made in sweat shops? I would not want to encourage this kind of human exploitation.
With all of the cyber hacking coming from China these days how can we be sure that they haven’t rigged these radio’s with some imbedded software or chip to either control and disable them at some point or even use them to spy on us like the NSA does. Frankly I don’t trust these radio’s as far as I can throw them.
They may be putting spy chips are in fortune cookies too.
How much is UK VAT on electronics or ham gear?
Why should manufacturers of goods made OUTSIDE the UK pay UK VAT? The UK has not provided any “Value Added” in the production of said goods. If the tax is on ANY goods sold in the UK regardless of where they are made, then it is NOT a “Value Added” tax, it is simply the theft of money from one group of people by a different “Elitist and Protected” group of people to spend how ever they see fit (often to buy votes).
As for stopping these Chinese products due to poor quality: That argument may have merit, provided objective testing is done first and the results are made publicly available for scrutiny.
VAT on goods with the exception of food and childrens cloths in the UK is 20%