Import Duty, Wrongly Charged VAT; How do you claim it back?

soolin

As I mentioned earlier I dabble in the UK collectable market and just off the top of my head I can find you this DVD that is a UK release and usually sells for near £100:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Star-Cops-Complete-David-Calder/dp/B0002K103O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1247639520&sr=8-1

I personally have never seen one.

Hintza

cyril82 wrote: »

If it is confirmed that customs estimated your liability due to being unconvinced that the declared value was correct,...

But why would a customs official think that a DVD boxset/collection were worth so much? In this instance you could have stated £20 and i doubt that would have rung any alarm bells. On what has been said by OP it sounds like a error. But not by a huge amount and some of that could be covered by any postage charges.

I was overcharged once and wrote a simple letter to customs and received a refund cheque virtually by return. However this was when we returned from RSA and was for cigarettes that I brought back personally, they had based their calculations on £1/ packet and proved I had paid 50p/packet.

H.P.Bazxter

Hintza wrote: »

But why would a customs official think that a DVD boxset/collection were worth so much? In this instance you could have stated £20 and i doubt that would have rung any alarm bells. On what has been said by OP it sounds like a error. But not by a huge amount and some of that could be covered by any postage charges.

I was overcharged once and wrote a simple letter to customs and received a refund cheque virtually by return. However this was when we returned from RSA and was for cigarettes that I brought back personally, they had based their calculations on £1/ packet and proved I had paid 50p/packet.

The postage was about 20GBP, but 200GBP I paid to get DVDs included the postage, so if VAT was charged on it, then I am losing out a bit, due to sender stating the value INCLUDING the postage.

Still waiting for the delivery, any minutes now...

cyril82

import duty and vat are applied to the total price including shipping.

It is one of the most common mistakes small ebay traders who import from the far east make, often leading to them thinking they are making a profit only to find out that due to miscalculating their import duty and vat liability they are actually making a loss.

Most people assume import duty works like this;
(for the purpose of this example import duty will be 10% and vat 15%)

i buy something for £100 plus £20 shipping,
i pay duty on the £100 but not the shipping so that is £10 duty
then i pay vat on the £100 so that's £15

Total import duty and vat = £25

It actually works like this;
You buy something for £100 + £20 shipping
You pay import duty on £120 which equals £12
You now have a total invoice of £132 to which vat is applied = £19.80 vat

Total import duty and vat = £31.80 not £25.

martindow

H.P.Bazxter wrote: »

I have not seen the good yet, but was told by the sender the custom form was filled as follows;
Contents; DVD (No Commercial Value)
Number of goods; 1
Value; 30000(not sure if it says JPY or not, but is in JPY)

Do you think this raised eyebrows at customs? How can it have no commercial value and yet be worth 30,000JPY?

Good luck - hope you sort it out.

Samba_Pa_Ti

cyril82 wrote: »

import duty and vat are applied to the total price including shipping.

It is one of the most common mistakes small ebay traders who import from the far east make, often leading to them thinking they are making a profit only to find out that due to miscalculating their import duty and vat liability they are actually making a loss.

Most people assume import duty works like this;
(for the purpose of this example import duty will be 10% and vat 15%)

i buy something for £100 plus £20 shipping,
i pay duty on the £100 but not the shipping so that is £10 duty
then i pay vat on the £100 so that's £15

Total import duty and vat = £25

It actually works like this;
You buy something for £100 + £20 shipping
You pay import duty on £120 which equals £12
You now have a total invoice of £132 to which vat is applied = £19.80 vat

Total import duty and vat = £31.80 not £25.

and theres the £8/£13.50 handling fee ontop.

H.P.Bazxter

Just received the item, done taking photos of outside and opened it.
HMR didn't open this package to check inside, and the declaration says the value is 20000. Postage is 4650JPY (=£30). The break down for the charge was;
Import Duty £19.46
Excise Duty £0
VAT £86.33
Other £0
Parcel Force Handling Fee £13.50

VAT should be around £35. Am I right?

barmonkey

cyril82 wrote: »

import duty and vat are applied to the total price including shipping.

thats not strictly true, although it would be in the case of these DVDs.

the shipping is only included if the value of the item is over £18.

if for instance the item cost £17.50 and postage was £5 no duty would be charged,
if the item cost £18.50 amd postage was £5, duty would be payed on £23.50

Samba_Pa_Ti

H.P.Bazxter wrote: »

Just received the item, done taking photos of outside and opened it.
HMR didn't open this package to check inside, and the declaration says the value is 20000. Postage is 4650JPY (=£30). The break down for the charge was;
Import Duty £19.46
Excise Duty £0
VAT £86.33
Other £0
Parcel Force Handling Fee £13.50

VAT should be around £35. Am I right?

sounds right, although the import duty rates will differ, the VAT should be the same for all items (unless im going nuts) i just had an item for around 300 quid from japan and like i said earlier it was around 60 quid, so the vat is definately over the top there.

exact breakdown from parcelfarce & ebay price for comparison :

---

ebay price : £196.66
postage (EMS) : £74

---

import duty : £8.37 (expected this to be higher)
VAT : £40.49
clearance fee : £13.50
Total : £62.36

whats most annoying is you expected import duty and seemed to get stung >:/

cyril82

cyril82 wrote: »

import duty and vat are payable on anything over £18.

Thanks barmonkey although i did already mention the £18 threashold earlier as quoted above.

:beer: