Customs Duties on vinyl collection for HMV Japan

Ordered a vinyl collection from HMV Japan, costing me around £150, and I have now received a letter telling me I need to pay custom duties on the item, totalling at an additional £50....
The import VAT is £35 and the clearance fee is £15.
What does this mean exactly?
I haven't received one of these before.
I'm regretting purchasing it a little now ¬_¬

 

Tax and customs for goods sent from abroad - GOV.UK

 

You've basically been hit by customs and excise. Over the years they've been getting more vigilant with assessing taxes and duty on incoming packages. I remember when I lived in the UK my friend bought two dvds from Amazon US and the total was about 2 quid over the threshold and he was hit with VAT and clearance fees. Turned out it would've been cheaper for him to get them sent separately.

 

Thanks for this link. At least I know now.

I've was never hit with taxes when ordering my AKG Q701 from the US, I think it was around £140 haha
HMV Japan had a bunch of offers at the time of my purchase, -1000 Yen to all new customers and , I believe it was, a 20% shipping discount on orders over 10,000 Yen.
The order would have came out at £132 if the shipping cost didn't change ¬_¬

 

If buying abroad, outside the EU, it's best to find a site that will do customs clearance for you, Amazon US and Japan for example, they will add the VAT on to the cost, but no nasty high Royal Mail or courier company collection fees, as mentioned by eddiel since the financial crash the chances of any parcel from abroad arriving without getting hit for VAT and import duty if applicable has gone from around 50% or less to 90% or more, that and huge postage cost increases have pretty much stopped me buying abroad.