Amazon requesting me to make a VAT payment

Sell On Amazon Global Selling
1

The following message I received from Amazon states that I have to pay a VAT liability of around £1,233. I am confused about this. How are they asking me to pay the VAT? Will I have to transfer the whole payment to their bank? My disbursement has been held for 1.5 months.

`Hello,

You have previously been notified of your outstanding VAT liabilities.

To pay by wire transfer or check, please follow the instructions at the bottom of this message.

If there are any positive funds in your account, we may utilize them to settle the outstanding balance.

Please be informed that the release of funds will be made once your VAT liabilities have been cleared.

If you have questions regarding your payment options, or have recently made a payment, you can write to our team at [email protected]

Thank you for selling on Amazon.

============== Wire Transfers ==============
(Please enter the reference code below into the additional information field of your wire transfer)

Liability in GBP*
Reference code: NSB UK (Merchant Token)
Account name: Amazon Payments UK Limited
Bank: Deutsche Bank London
IBAN: GB39DEUT40508118129100
SWIFT: DEUTGB2LXXX

*Failing to provide the correct Merchant Token can cause problems to locate your payment. You can find your Marchant Token by following these steps:

Sign in to Seller Central:

Go to “Settings”, select “Your Merchant Token” under “Business Information” section.`

`Sincerely,

Seller Performance Team
Amazon.co.uk`

2

Amazon is not asking you to manually calculate or file anything yourself here, but to settle an internal VAT liability they believe has accrued on your account, and they will clear it either by offsetting any positive balance already sitting in your Seller Central or by you paying it directly if your balance is insufficient.

If your disbursements have been held for 1.5 months, that usually means Amazon is retaining incoming sales proceeds and applying them toward the £1,233 VAT liability until it is fully cleared, and once that happens the hold is lifted automatically.

You only need to make a separate bank transfer if your account does not generate enough funds to cover the liability, in which case you would send exactly the stated amount to the bank account of Amazon Payments UK Limited using your merchant token as the payment reference so they can match the funds to your seller account.

You do not pay this through your normal VAT return or to HMRC directly, because this relates to VAT Amazon is contractually collecting or accounting for under its marketplace obligations, and once the liability is settled, either by offset or transfer, Amazon should release your withheld disbursement without further action from you.