The Moon and Sixpence

I have regularly participated in international exhibitions in Europe for many years. There are several juried shows, ie a sort of competition where judges decide whether your tapestry is suitable to be included. So in December of 2020, having had a tapestry accepted, I sent it off to Silkeborg Bad in Denmark for the opening of Artapestry6, as did several other exhibitors from the UK.

Because this was just before Brexit, shipping out wasn’t a problem, but the return of the work might be, so I took extra precautions. I registered as an importer/exporter and labelled my tapestry as a ‘Temporary Export – for return in an Unaltered State’. I paid a shipper extra to make sure all the paperwork was in order, and I had to complete rather a lot of paperwork.

After its initial venue, the exhibition toured to Sweden and Finland, where the exhibition came to an end. I got word that I should make arrangements for the return of my work, now from the European Union that the UK was no longer part of. It should be collected during the second week of September of this year.

Despite my meticulous efforts, one aspect of the process had eluded me. The tapestry was going to return from a DIFFERENT country from the one it first went to. Somehow HM Revenue and Customs can’t cope with this, despite all the countries in question being within the EU. I was told I would be charged VAT (Value Added Tax) on the import of my tapestry at a rate of 20%. This would be a significant amount of money, given the value of a tapestry. I might be able to claim it back, but this was uncertain.

The shippers said that if I could provide evidence of the movements of the show with dates and invoices for transport, that might help. The exhibition’s organisers are volunteers but had to jump to contact the various galleries and search their records. Numerous emails flew back and forth between the organisers, other weavers, the shippers, venues and me. Exactly which documents would prove our point?

Silence from the shippers was worrying, and so were requests for more documents, some of which I had already submitted. But eventually the tapestry arrived, only four weeks after it had been picked up in Finland. And even though the bill for the shipping was large, the miracle was that HM Revenue and Customs had graciously decided not to charge VAT for ‘importing’ the tapestry that I had made with my own hands.

I was relieved with the outcome, but it has also put me off applying to be part of future exhibitions in Europe. This is just one tiny example of why it is preferable to be part of the EU rather than on the outside looking in.

 

 

https://www.tapestry.dk/artapestry6-1