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

As I pointed out earlier there's no pot of gold in taxing individuals, there is in stopping evasion by multinationals. I read somewhere that Ireland was pushing the UK hard to close the Channel Islands loophole.

 

I worked for Ken

 

As if the VAT wasn't bad enough, the handling charge is just outrages. I didn't mind it on a big order but when you bought a single item it was just a total rip off. The guy at my local post office always apologised to me in embarrassment. In the end I basically stop buying abroad.

 

How much is the handling free?

 

Now thats total rip-off!
I must have missed that earlier mention, thanks for the mention.

 

Yep, you are right and with the privatisation of the post in Europe we got even less control. You also have to be very careful with special premium services like express because the whole shipment will be handled by more than one carrier and the express part you pay for is only "guaranteed" by the first carrier and subsequently - when it enters the destination country for instance - it wil be handled by another carrier and like a standard shipment. Consumers and small companies are paying far too much this way for services they do not get!

 

Bastards

 

Caught twice now they have got much more dilligent since the Fees went up.

For the record i ahve no problem with paying the VAT, the only reason i buy from the US is because the stuff just is not available in the UK.

The problems i have are with fees which exceed the value of the TAX.

The govenement did reduce the low value shipment from £18 to £15 but i beleve its based on EU legislation. It was 20 or 25 Euros, of course theer are some European countries which are less dilligent about tax collection than others and as a consiquence they are moaning about the pain they are in now.

 

I thought Leslie Philips WAS Horace in that Comic Strip Presents. I love Kate Bush Great song! Thanks for reminding me

 

That wouldn't surprise me. A few years ago, the Irish government introduced a flat charge of €1 per item purchased from CDWow.com following complaints from retailers HMV, Virgin and Golden Discs. CDWow were exploiting some loophole and exporting CDs and DVDs from Honk Kong with the added fillip of free delivery! They were effectively flooding the Irish market with VAT-free produce that the Irish retailers couldn't possibly compete with. I'm sure the UK retailers must have been affected, too, and complained to the UK authorities.

 

With Royal Mail I always had to pay the GBP8 (orders from amazon US), but with private couriers I actually got lucky most of the time and paid nothing, e.g. orders from PopMarket or elusivedisc.

 

In the EU, there is a tax-free limit of 22€ for regular sales and 45€ for gifts.

Customs can open the package to verify if the gift claim is plausible. German customs are known to sometimes do detective work, checking recent Ebay auctions on the items and so on (also to find out the real value). So there is always a risk involved in stating a lower value or marking it as a gift when it's in fact a sale.

 

In Switzerland it is 60 Chf or 50 Euros.

They are pretty strict here, and the customs/handling charges are pretty high, around 25 chf if you are just over the limit!

Of course with the increased postal costs from the US my purchases from there have cut down drastically, I've seen some sellers charging over $20 shipping for an lp to Europe now.

 

When I lived in the UK I experienced the opposite. Royal Mail delivered items tended to escape the charges but private couriers I usually got nailed.

The Royal Mail charges are a steal compared to what Fedex or UPS charge. They charge by value of shipment and there's a minimum fee.

 

I haven't read the whole thread here but the problem as I see it is insurance. I recently sold two expensive 45's to bidders from the UK. In order for me to insure the records for full price, you have to declare full price on the customs form. If I say it is a gift and the record gets lost or broken, too bad for me. That's not something I want to do. Both these 45's were 4 to 5 hundred dollars. They cost me over 40 dollars to ship. One of the buyers left no feedback and one left positive feedback with a little message about how it's a shame about the HMRC. I hate to stick buyers with that but what can I do?

 

What I don't understand is the sending pays FedEx or UPs to deliver an item and the person receiving has to pay them again? How do they get away with that?

 

That would probably be right. What I cannot understand though is how our [Irish] Government can extend so much in the way of tax breaks to multinationals such as Google, PayPal and many others to set up business here by offering low corporation taxes etc. Britain, France, Germany etc. have been railing against this for a long time. I am surprised that the U.K. would even listen to us with complaints about the Channel Islands' loophole!

The example of Starbucks for instance and how they can avoid paying proper taxes in the U.K. is nothing short of a travesty, to my mind. I guess it's much easier to hit the small guy buying a few records/CDs than these sprawling multinationals.

 

Yes and the answer is to fight it.

It is EXTORTION. SCREW customs.

It's merely a statute and not a real law. The real law of our land is COMMON LAW.

 

FedEx or UPS shipping cost does not include duty/tax payable in the country the goods are sent to, that's what the addressee has to pay when they receive the goods.

 

People need to stop complaining about everything and get POLITICALLY active.

We are being lied to and ripped off daily. Contact you MEPs, visit you MPs: I do myself.

We are the only ones who can change things.

 

Yup, catch 22. I always asked well known sellers to declare a lower amount with me assuming full responsibility.