UK Customs - 20% VAT on records over £15 from US + handling fee

According to a couple of UK vinyl forums, UK Customs are now becoming stricter and much more consistent in their enforcement of 20% VAT on internet purchases from non-EU countries (such as the US).

In short, any purchase over £15, whether new or used, will incur a 20% VAT surcharge, PLUS £8 handling fee from Royal Mail.

So: $24 record bought from US = £15.85, which attracts VAT of £3 + RM handling charge of £8, adding a further £11 to your purchase price.

There's always been a random/luck/karma element as to whether or not you get hit by this in the UK, but word on the vinyl street is that the glory days of 'cheap' US imports are over!

Anyone in the UK been hit recently?

www.hmrc.gov.uk/customs/post/buying.htm

 

This is bound to become more and more commonplace...every country is hurting financially to various degrees so why wouldn't the Federal Gov'ts start collecting what they were always due on paper...the Gov't can add a extra customs agents and they'll pay for themselves 1000s of times over.

 

Can't someone declare "gift" anymore?

 

You can but there is a limit to the value a gift can be free of duty. In Canada it's $60.....so if someone sent a 'gift' for $100 then theoretically $40 of it is taxable. Not sure how often that is applied...I've never seen it...pretty much anything marked Gift gets through in my experience.

 

Apparently 'gifts' may be opened by Customs to check that "there is no commercial or trade element and the gift has not been paid for either directly or indirectly by anyone in the UK".

There is also now an increasingly traceable electronic audit trail between buyer and seller (or 'gift receiver' and benefactor, if you prefer!).

 

Bugger.

 

A classic case of a government becoming too big for its boots.

 

Yeah let's do without taxes on imports while we cry on local shops shutting down... If you pay 20% VAT when you buy locally why should you not pay the same when you import? To give an unfair advantage to the shop that doesn't contribute to the local economy?

 

The limit used to be £18 so they've reduced, think I had only got caught out once when it was £18 but I got caught out the other day, I've got a feeling that less packages are going to slip through the net now as when I collected my parcel there were a few other people there for the same reason.

I don't mind paying the VAT, but it's the £8 'handling fee' Royal Mail add which annoys me

 

I got caught twice during February on vinyl album purchases from the US. Both items I ordered would have been under the £15 limit however, for whatever reason, the sender (artist website) marked the value of the packages to include the postage total. So a vinyl disc that was approximately $20 was marked as $40.

Other items still sneak through the system though - The Clapton "Slowhand" box set arrived here from Amazon Canada back in January in one of the largest cardboard containers I've seen and it passed right through the system without any additional charge.

The person who serves me at the collection counter told me that he gets his purchases sent with a maximum $10 value put on each package but I've never felt comfortable asking an individual seller to do this for me.

 

Yes, I was bilked out of £11 last month, and the irony was, it was an LP I didn't want nor ask for. Sent back at my own expense, I am now £34 worse off and no LP.

 

Oddly enough the large number of items that used to slip through the net was due to Royal Mail being stopped by the regulator.from increasing its previous charge. Since it it claimed it was making a loss on providing facilities to Customs, HMRC were limited to a small office in the Victorian Mount Pleasant sorting office in Central London. The regulator caved in a few years back. the fee doubled and now 95% of international parcels are handled at a modern shed near Heathrow, where there are ample facilities for HMRC.

The Royal Mail's fee at £8 is much lower than couriers, Parcelforce charges £13.50, I was stung £16 by UPS for collecting £4 VAT for the goverment on a package worth £20.

While the limits for tax-free imports in the UK are much lower than the US, customs clearance fees are international. I worked in New York for a spell recently and shipped over a small trunk of clothes. It cost $260 for an agent to clear the trunk through US customs, who rifled through all my underwear and then charged $0 as it was going back 6 months later. At least my employers were paying.

 

Apparently Cameron's new "Bedroom Tax" is steeper for those whose spare bedroom is full of vinyl LP's That's my old room in Dad's house in London gone for a Burton then lol

 

US sellers often seem to inflate the value quoted on the customs slip. As long as you have some proof of the amount paid, you can reclaim the VAT from HMRC, then the clearance fee from Royal Mail. Its not easy though.

Asking the seller to understate the value is asking them to commit fraud and commiting fraud yourself. HMRC can open the package and charge VAT on their estimate of the value, which will be high.

 

So without being political (I wasn't the one coming up with the "government too big" predictable and inappropriate tagline) it seems that the problem is not with VAT (government controlled) but with private companies charging a high fee and making an undue profit because the paying customer has no way to choose which courier delivers the parcel.

 

I know that here in Oz the postage is included as part of any shipments value for import assessment. Fortunately the import value is A$1000 - but move's are afoot to reduce this considerably

 

I did this. One Xmas I was coming back to UK for a visit and ordered the Neil Young 4LP boxset. Having been hit by a substantial charge I didn't open it and got it stamped as being 'exported' at the airport. Then when back in Oz I reclaimed all of the duty paid. But of course the Post Office kept that dodgy "handling" fee. Funny how they don't charge that when "handling" other mail. What a rort!

 

Well, the ubiquitous nature of VAT is responsible for the low value limit of £15 - customs duty in the UK only kicks in on higher value imports just as elsewhere in the VAT free world. But yes its the flat clearance fee on low value items that annoys. I have no problems paying my taxes for the benefit of society.

 

You can buy from Amazon US and use their pre paid import duty option. It's a little more expensive but gets delivered by Ups who don't then charge a handling fee, in effect you just pay the duty.

Happily for me I ordered two boxsets last year this way and several months later Amazon even refunded the duty (I don't know why, perhaps someone forgot to fill in the right forms, but don't bank on this).

 

agree

thats the charge that really gets to me

 

Well just to put things in perspective the "VAT-free world" is not a very large world...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_added_tax#Different_systems

 

but only if he lives in a Council House or Housing association property