UK Customs Duty

This is correct I'm afraid and you were lucky it was carried by Royal Mail rather than a courier (typically a courier's handling charge is between £10 and £15).

This is what you can get charged:

VAT - 17.5% Import Duty - 3% Courier's Handling Charge - Not always charged but at their mercy regarding the amount.

Also, I understand that duty is technically due on all such items regardless of value. The £18 is a suggested limit above which imports should be considered for duty - but an evil customs office could make the charge. My guess is the £18 is limit is not for your benefit but to cut their workload down and prevent them incurring processing costs greater than the money they collect.

Cheers,

Nigel

In article , snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com says..= .

Welcome to the real world Enzo.

You might be pleased to know you are as knowledgeable as Wayne Rooney's gir= lfriend. She was surprised to discover that she couldn't just walk through customs w= ith over =A310k=20 worth of clothes she'd bought in New York..

T.

--=20 Please Tony, NO!! You'd look dreadful in a basque and fishnets..

LOL Oh, that makes me feel *so* much better!

I can understand paying duty on 10 grand's worth of designer dresses. But thirty-odd quid's worth of resin parts? Sounds to me like they were looking for a pound of flesh. In future I'll happily pay a couple of quid to Canada Post for small orders rather than *anything* to bloody customs and bloody excise! :-)

You have my every sympathy. Here in New Zealand, they don't start collecting GST (same thing as your VAT but at 12.5%) on stuff like this untill the order is NZ$400 or more (about £155) including postage and no handing charge.

Cheers, Sean.

Enzo Matrix wrote:

Wozzle !

Although I admire the Commonwealth, it is becoming apparent you are quite rapidly losing your 'Commonsense'. At least here in the States I'm not taxed on Internet purchases unless the vendor in question has offices in my home State.

John

Perhaps the real solution is to buy £10K of resin parts, thus reducing the proportionate hit of the post office handling charge. Or go to Canada, and wear the stuff as earrings when you come back. What I find especially amusing about this is that if you order from Hannants, you pay VAT, but I, in the US and thus non-EC, don't pay it. Likewise buying from Australia. Usually the savings defrays the postage cost, and often generates a lower total than equivalent merchandise would from a certain entity in a state with which I try never to do business. It strikes me that this kind of policy is remarkably like selective tariffs combined with manufacturer subsidies, which would violate free trade laws, but for some reason it doesn't.

Mark Schynert

I belive that the customs duty was required by the European Community. If I were a cynical man, I would say that it was intended to attempt to reduce British trading links with the Commonwealth.

I think most states have this provision. I believe it's called use tax. I know NY does. Every so often states go on enforcement binges to try to enforce this law. For instance, NY agents have been sent to New Jersey outlet store malls to put flyers on cars with NY license plates informing the owners they are liable for taxes. The implication, of course, is that they've taken down your license plate number, although they probably haven't.

As for internet taxes, here in NY there is a new provision requiring you to state the amount of internet purchasing you've done and then pay use tax on it. Of course, they offer a way around this nightmare by simply paying a tax chosen from a table based on your income. In effect they've simply slapped a fee on New Yorkers, based on income, for shopping tax free on the internet.

Mark

Dont forget 2nd hand toys are still taxed etc, anything 2nd hand too.

The couriers handling charge may be high, but its also illegal in many cases. You never authorised them to provide this service, so they have no claim to your money. In fact, in many cases, you never even chose to do business with them.

This is a component you shouldn't moan about; it gets applied to anything you buy, so live with it or elect a government that will fleece you by methods more to your taste.

Might be different in the UK, but in The Netherlands this depends on what sort of goods you're importing.

Yes, the ultimate scapegoat. I'm not overly fond of the EC, but VAT and import duties have been around for a very long time, so its not really fair to blame them for this. As far as I know, the only EC requirement in this was that they made sure the rules were the same accross the EU common market (and this make a lot of sense). Maybe in the UK that has meant that the customs service is no longer allowed to turn a blind eye towards shipments to private persons, but I'm fairly certain they didn't change any laws in this respect. Here in The Netherlands there has been no difference whatsoever (no true, I can now import goods from other EU countries without paying another round of VAT over the local price plus the local VAT).

Rob

Yup, a fact of life when ordering from overseas. I always make sure that = any kits or accessories I buy abroad come to less than =A318, splitting = them into separate consignments if necessary as even then P+P is always = less than import duty.

Andy Fae Edinburgh

certainly

unsympathetic. She

AAaahhh, The glories of Socialism! This reminds me why I do not live/visit in the great Socialist Welfare Republic of New York! Of course, my own home state of Maryland is heading in the same direction as fast as the "Socialistcratic" party can drive it. Despite the current Republican Governors efforts the Socialistcratic State Legislature has been on a steady program of legislative class warfare against the middle class, who are too stupid to realize what is going on and continue to vote Socialistcratic in large numbers.

Bill Shuey

Bill Shuey

Before anyone moans too much, though it's now a 'Europe Wide' threshold, there are two points to remember.

1) There was a similar duty in pre-EU, EEC days. 2) Our very own Chancellor Gordon Brown (not he of Cromwell models, the other one) is actively campaigning within Europe to raise the threshold to around £1,000.

So, as we are in election mode in the UK, why not ask the individuals knocking on your door in the next few weeks what their position is on Custom's Duty.

Incidentally, that's why places like 'play.com' operate from the Channel Isles and only send packets up to the value of £18.

MH

Hi Enzo,

Welcome to the club, I got caught a few times before I found out about the £18.00 limit, (I posted the link to the HM Customs website here at the time).

Now, I always try to keep the value of my orders around about the £18 mark, I have found that you can stretch this a bit, but I guess its down to whether you get a "jobs worth" checking your parcel or not.

Some on-line retailers e.g. Lucky Model do offer you the facility to have a low value declared on the customs label (totally illegal I know but I wont tell if you don't) but not all on line retailers are prepared to do this.

Happy modelling Ant

Play.Com sell and send plenty of things costing more than £18.

Cheers,

Nigel

Yes this is quite common, but has two potential problems. One - it is illegal and if the seller is unlucky enough to get caught it is he who will be prosecuted/fined and so I can understand their reluctance. Two - if you are unlucky and your parcel is lost or damaged you can only claim the declared value.

Two other ploys are to mark the item as 'Gift' or to declare the item as a 'Toy'. We usually moan when our loved ones and friends refer to our models as toys but at least here it as benefit as toys in the UK currently carry a Zero Rate of VAT.

Generally I have found that eastern dealers (hong kong, malaysia etc) are more ameniable to bending the law than western dealers.

I fly RC helicopters and know a lot of people who buy their gear from Hong Kong and very view have ever been caught by customs and excise and this is for high value items (£400 or more).

Cheers,

Nigel

Do the Channel Islands get some sort of 'pass'?

Bill Banaszak, MFE