Rip off England: Import duties and fees

Rip off England: Import duties and fees

Author
Discussion

Glassman

22,501 posts

214 months

Sunday 13th January 2008
quotequote all
peterguk said:
branflakes said:
Don't pay Fedex!
Stupid advice! They have paid duty and VAT to Customs & Excise on the recipient's behalf and have every right to recover it!

Hopefully they will sue.
Hopefully?

tubbystu

3,846 posts

259 months

Sunday 13th January 2008
quotequote all
esselte said:
g_attrill said:
£72 sounds rather high, do you have a breakdown of the costs? Worst case is 10% duty plus £15 and then 17.5% VAT?
Have they charged tax on the shipping as well?


VAT goes on last and on everything, purchase cost, shipping, fees etc

esselte

14,626 posts

266 months

Sunday 13th January 2008
quotequote all
tubbystu said:
esselte said:
g_attrill said:
£72 sounds rather high, do you have a breakdown of the costs? Worst case is 10% duty plus £15 and then 17.5% VAT?
Have they charged tax on the shipping as well?


VAT goes on last and on everything, purchase cost, shipping, fees etc
And there'll be Fedex admin charges too......

NickyTwoHats

2,093 posts

240 months

Sunday 13th January 2008
quotequote all
Don't get me started!
On a related point.
Go to the Bitter End Yacht Club "one of the most exclusive yacht clubs in the world" a couple of miles from Necker.
Buy a litre of 47% Tanqueray there.

Shipped UK to USA in a big boat.
Then shipped in a smaller boat to Tortola.
Then in a smaller boat to Virgin Gorda.
Then put in a shop in a premium "resort".
Then a profit margin added.

$18.00 .... LESS THAN HALF UK PRICE! WTF!

If you buy on Tortola it's $13.50 AAAARGH we're taking it in the buttocks!

...and breathe.

oldbanger

4,316 posts

237 months

Sunday 13th January 2008
quotequote all
esselte said:
g_attrill said:
£72 sounds rather high, do you have a breakdown of the costs? Worst case is 10% duty plus £15 and then 17.5% VAT?
Have they charged tax on the shipping as well?
They will have done - it's automatically included in calculations.

Just to note, there is a lower limit for the goods underneath which you don't get hit for import duty at all. Currently I believe that it's £18, unless it's a gift.

If the item is marked as a gift (and has supporting evidence inside if they decide to open the parcel e.g. birthday card, note, wrapping paper or whatever) that the threshold rises to £36.

If the type of item would be vat free here, make sure it is labeled as such on the customs declaration too.

More info at http://www.dhl.co.uk/publish/gb/en/information/shi...

ETA, if you do label the goods cheaper than they are to avoid tax, make sure you remove price labels and that the amount or type of stuff is not obviously worth a lot more, because they can re-value the stuff themselves and then charge you whatever they like.

Edited by oldbanger on Sunday 13th January 14:58

Taita

7,592 posts

202 months

Sunday 13th January 2008
quotequote all
Just to stir it up a bit. What right does the government have to tax you on things that you bring into the country.

Just because its been around for a few hundred years doesn't make it morally right.

anonymous-user

53 months

Sunday 13th January 2008
quotequote all
Taita said:
Just to stir it up a bit. What right does the government have to tax you on things that you bring into the country.

Just because its been around for a few hundred years doesn't make it morally right.
rofl

Import duties have been harmonised accross europe now, so the french, germans etc get equaly stung when importing from outside the EU.

Balmoral Green

40,660 posts

247 months

Sunday 13th January 2008
quotequote all
http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/ch...

Edited by Balmoral Green on Sunday 13th January 16:52

Mello

4,492 posts

233 months

Sunday 13th January 2008
quotequote all
I shipped my Corvette ABS computer to the US for repair last month. It cost me £18 to send by Post Office, and arrived in 3 days.

It took two weeks to come back (after despatch). It was sent by UPS, who charged upfront $80, then subsequently charged £11 "customs processing" fee, then £48 duty on the repair!! It's difficult to value a broken ABS computer, so I said £30. The repair itself cost $150.

So, in GB pounds:-
repair = £75
post out = £18
post back = £40
customs/duty = £59

£192 for a £75 repair to a unit which I owned in the first place. Still, it makes Gordon Happy. censored

Deltaf01

1,512 posts

196 months

Sunday 13th January 2008
quotequote all
Have been done by customs quite a few times when importing goods, vat and whatever they see fit to impose is what i think they work by.
And the £8.00 parking fee for autosport show was a complete boner and as for the live arena...well the less said. Some fat chump and loiuse goodman yarping on.
£28 to get my eardums bleeding and watch a few motors chase round the oval...no wonder no one co-operated when fatty on stage wanted audience participation, they were all pissed off too.
Rip off britain is very much alive and kicking -us.

Balmoral Green

40,660 posts

247 months

Sunday 13th January 2008
quotequote all
Mello said:
Stuff
I reckon something must be wrong there surely? Otherwise if you just took the car outside of the UK on holiday for example, they would want to be charging you for re-importing the ECU, and the rest of the car too? I know folks who have shipped their whole car to the US for rallys and such like, yet haven't had to pay stuff like that on return to the UK confused

Adz The Rat

13,944 posts

208 months

Sunday 13th January 2008
quotequote all
Have you got a copy of anything that you signed when you collected or they delivered the package??
Does it say anything on there about you paying any charges a month later??

anonymous-user

53 months

Sunday 13th January 2008
quotequote all
Balmoral Green said:
Mello said:
Stuff
I reckon something must be wrong there surely? Otherwise if you just took the car outside of the UK on holiday for example, they would want to be charging you for re-importing the ECU, and the rest of the car too? I know folks who have shipped their whole car to the US for rallys and such like, yet haven't had to pay stuff like that on return to the UK confused
You have to ship the car and spares on a carnet, that gets checked on export/return, any discrepancies get charged on. It's a totally diferent scanrio to the ECU as he is being charged on work being undertaken abroad.

biglepton

5,042 posts

200 months

Sunday 13th January 2008
quotequote all
Eric Mc said:
As far as I know, "England" doesnt impose any tariffs at all - what would the Scots and Welsh think?
Eh, who cares what they think, there's less of them than there are Brummies and nobody cares what they think! wink

King Herald

Original Poster:

23,501 posts

215 months

Sunday 13th January 2008
quotequote all
Kermit power said:
I would imagine your sister in law got the paperwork wrong?

Out of interest, how much would you have been charged under the same circumstances in other European countries? I assume you have done the research ahead of deciding that this is "Rip off England"? rolleyes
Sorry, my mistake, charging £72 bullsh1t taxes on a parcel worth £100 is not a rip off. rolleyes




esselte said:
tubbystu said:
esselte said:
g_attrill said:
£72 sounds rather high, do you have a breakdown of the costs? Worst case is 10% duty plus £15 and then 17.5% VAT?
Have they charged tax on the shipping as well?


VAT goes on last and on everything, purchase cost, shipping, fees etc
And there'll be Fedex admin charges too......
Duty £24.35p
VAT £41.03
Admin fee £6.80


Shipping £57

Value of package $200

So, they appear to have charged duty at 24% on the $200 value, or do you pay duty on shipping too?
VAT is charged on everything, shipping, admin and value of package.

steve.c

11,061 posts

208 months

Sunday 13th January 2008
quotequote all
Mello said:
I shipped my Corvette ABS computer to the US for repair last month. It cost me £18 to send by Post Office, and arrived in 3 days.

It took two weeks to come back (after despatch). It was sent by UPS, who charged upfront $80, then subsequently charged £11 "customs processing" fee, then £48 duty on the repair!! It's difficult to value a broken ABS computer, so I said £30. The repair itself cost $150.

So, in GB pounds:-
repair = £75
post out = £18
post back = £40
customs/duty = £59

£192 for a £75 repair to a unit which I owned in the first place. Still, it makes Gordon Happy. censored
There should have been no duty to pay at all if the item was being shipped out for repair!

for the OP, worth checking they haven't worked out the duty cost to you on the $ doller price instead of the sterling, as this happens a fair bit.

tubbystu

3,846 posts

259 months

Sunday 13th January 2008
quotequote all
steve.c said:
Mello said:
I shipped my Corvette ABS computer to the US for repair last month. It cost me £18 to send by Post Office, and arrived in 3 days.

It took two weeks to come back (after despatch). It was sent by UPS, who charged upfront $80, then subsequently charged £11 "customs processing" fee, then £48 duty on the repair!! It's difficult to value a broken ABS computer, so I said £30. The repair itself cost $150.

So, in GB pounds:-
repair = £75
post out = £18
post back = £40
customs/duty = £59

£192 for a £75 repair to a unit which I owned in the first place. Still, it makes Gordon Happy. censored
There should have been no duty to pay at all if the item was being shipped out for repair!

for the OP, worth checking they haven't worked out the duty cost to you on the $ doller price instead of the sterling, as this happens a fair bit.
It should have been shipped out to the states as an item returning for repair - for which there will be a pukka customs code. Upon re-import to UK it would come back under same code and you should have paid nothing in duty/vat. If its not detailed on the outbound paperwork they (rightly) assume otherwise on its return. This would need the services of a freight forwarder and not the post office so may have ultimately cost more in total.

oldbanger

4,316 posts

237 months

Sunday 13th January 2008
quotequote all
steve.c said:
for the OP, worth checking they haven't worked out the duty cost to you on the $ doller price instead of the sterling, as this happens a fair bit.
yes TNT used to be particularly bad at that when I used to use them.

Coq au Vin

3,239 posts

209 months

Sunday 13th January 2008
quotequote all
Yes, UK import duties are a rip off. The thresholds are set far too low - anything with a value of more than £18 gets hit with tax + extortionate processing charges. My wife once bought something for £20 (including shipping) from an overseas site and got hit with £7.50 in VAT and royal mail handling charges.

In contrast, here in NZ, customs only gets involved if the total value of the duty collected is more than $50 (approx £19). If the only applicable tax is VAT, you can import something up to $400 (£150) in value with no additional charges.

jaybkay

488 posts

219 months

Sunday 13th January 2008
quotequote all
I would be tempted not to pay Fedex - at the moment. They appear to have made a mistake by delivering the goods without collecting any taxes, so they should live with it. Imagine buying something in a shop and them coming to collect the VAT a month later - don't think so.

It will be interesting to see what reasoning Fedex will give as to why you have to pay, and what threats they use. In the meantime use the "manyana" principle - deal with it tomorrow.

In any case, when the goods were delivered you do remember asking if there were any extra costs to pay before you signed.

Another tip for importing goods is to get them sent to a VAT registered company. The amount on the single cheque for duties, fees, VAT etc could end up on a VAT reclaim form and all get reclaimed. In the extremely unlikely event a VAT inspection picks it up it will look like an administration mistake without penalties.