UK customs charges (postal)

[Goblinz]

Just recieved notification today that the post office has my SIDS and they want to charge me £25 customs charge before I can have them. This is 25% of their value and seems very excessive. Does anybody know if there's a way of contending it or avoiding it in the future. Thing I'm going to go have a rant at the post office later.

            G

[DavidBanner]

the customs charge should be 17.5%, but the sneaky bastards are now charging a handling fee on top of that.

there is no way around this that doesn't involve a shot gun and balaclava....

[TheAncientOne]

I've just paid £15.49 on 4 SID's, If I'd thought, I'd have bought 8 in one go. The charge is VAT at 17.5% plus a handling fee of £8. Thre is no actual customs duty. I do think this handling fee is excessive, but it's a lot better than that charged by some of the other mail companies, I beleive Parcel Force, (more often known as Parce Farce), charge a £20 handling fee.

VAT is a fact of life - we're in europe, we pay it. Wilba has to put the full value of the chips on the package for insurance purposes. A friend of mine had a pack of stuff from the USA go astray, the guy sending had declared it as $18 worth of spares. This was a few years ago. It was, in fact, 1G of ECC RAM. The insurance paid him $18.......

Something worth knowing.

PCB's have VAT, but no duty. Full kits are regarded as the finished item, so carry duty for whatever they are. There is duty on a music synth. A PCB plus some parts sent as 2 packages is different. I think Kits from SmashTV are regarded as parts, because they don't assemble into a finished synth - they are general purpose modules, regarded as electronic parts.

Things from Europe have no VAT or Customs duty, (VAT is already paid at the sending end). If you wnt something from Sweden, watch out, because their VAT is 25% !

As they say, life sucks, (but death doesn't put out at all).

[Jaicen]

I got charged VAT on my second lot of SID's (not the first four and PCB though). They did get delivered though, so maybe I've got away with it??? It really grieves me to have to give them money on something like this, they have no right to it whatsoever, not least because it's a private sale. This is what has always bothered me about buyin the x0x kit too, i'd have to expect it to be taxed, same with stuff from Warmouth etc..

[Wilba]

As I said in the other thread, VAT appears to be charged this time because I added postal insurance... so the amount on the customs declaration was to be the same as the insured amount. It sucks. I might try writing "GIFT!" on the form in future (there is no box to tick for "Gift" on the form like the green customs labels).

It's a bit ludicrous... UK and Australia share the same goddamn Queen but imports from Australia get taxed to buggery while all the stuff you get from Europe is free of VAT and customs duty. WTF?

[opkod]

I didn't paid VAT for the sids, and sometimes I have to pay... not regular, but it was only for products that come from US...  ::)

[Goblinz]

As I said in the other thread, VAT appears to be charged this time because I added postal insurance... so the amount on the customs declaration was to be the same as the insured amount. It sucks. I might try writing "GIFT!" on the form in future (there is no box to tick for "Gift" on the form like the green customs labels).

It's a bit ludicrous... UK and Australia share the same goddamn Queen but imports from Australia get taxed to buggery while all the stuff you get from Europe is free of VAT and customs duty. WTF?

I think sending something as a "Sample" also exempts it from being taxed.

              G

[Jaicen]

I'm not sure that will help. I think what did the damage this time was they recorded your return address on lots of orders coming in. When more arrived within a certain time, HMCE jumped on it and slapped huge Tax billls on them. I get the feeling everything coming in from J. Williams from now on will get the same treatment.