It’s quite long time since I’ve bought off Aliexpress amd sometimes you used to get hit with a collection fee and VAT on imported goods.
I was looking at some torches on there the other day and put them into my basket and went as though I was going to check out and it added an element of tax to the total.
Does anyone oknow if that’s local tax for them or if it’s UK tax so I’m not likely to get aonther bill when they come to deliver?
It adds VAT @20%, and so long as the purchase is under the import duty threshold (£100+ or something, I’m not sure exaclty) then you won’t get charged a thing on top of that 20%. They have to charge you VAT by law, and it speeds up the whole thing
Brilliant … thanks for that, I quote often buy stuff on behalf of a couple of friends as well so useful to know what the limit is 
I 2nd GOOSE’s comment; they charge you extra at checkout which is annoying but there’s no import charges or anything after that
I’m glad VAT is collected that way. If not, customs will charge you with the same amount of VAT, but add a handling fee. That may vary, but can get (in NL) as high as €12 for a budget light. Depends on what company does the handling (red tape).
Would be interesting to know if HMRC ever actually recieve the VAT… 
I do actually prefer the current method as opposed to the stupid “collection fee” that was slapped on.
Now…that is the question…!
Maybe in some secret agreement with the Chinese government we balance the books in some unseen way via trade deals, I dunno, it’s a can of worms. Maybe they hand it over to HMRC and we are all pessimists! 
Since Brexit, platforms like AliExpress are required to collect VAT for the UK on purchases under £135, and they add it to the total during checkout. It’s meant to avoid the old hassle of customs holding your stuff and slapping a collection fee on top.
If you’re still unsure about how VAT works in these situations, it’s worth looking into vat compliance for more clarity, especially if you’re buying or selling stuff regularly.