Import duty &tax on photos?

satan666wayne

I ordered some photo books from the USA. Is duty payable on photos?
my tracking info says.

EAST MIDLANDS AIRPOR, GB 10/22/200912:52 A.M.SHIPMENT ON HOLD AWAITING PAYMENT OF DUTY & TAX

Hintza

What are they? Photos or books?

satan666wayne

They are photobooks as in my personal photos printed in a book.

martindow

Have a look here (link below). Most books are zero rated but photograph albums for example are standard rated. I would check with HMRC and if your items are zero rated get the sender to put the commodity code clearly on the customs documents to make sure that it is cleared correctly.

http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageLibrary_PublicNoticesAndInfoSheets&propertyType=document&columns=1&id=HMCE_CL_000102#P293_29418

lei_armstrong

If the value is over £18 then you will have to pay an £8 Royal Mail handling fee plus 15% of the value of the item in VAT.

custardy

lei_armstrong wrote: »

If the value is over £18 then you will have to pay an £8 Royal Mail handling fee plus 15% of the value of the item in VAT.

depends who is delivering it surely

StaffsSW

lei_armstrong wrote: »

If the value is over £18 then you will have to pay an £8 Royal Mail handling fee plus 15% of the value of the item in VAT.

DHL charged me £75 admin and handling fee, but that was on an imported value of over $6000, and the local duty I had to pay was 2.3% on the item value and shipping charge! And the small matter of 15% VAT as well.
I do not object to the charge at all though, as the amount of paperwork involved was substantial, and they did pay everything up front on my behalf, even though it was a first purchase. If I had not bothered to show up, they would be left with the cost of the duty, and 2 pallets of obscure stock to return.

Still - nobody else sells the items in the UK, and I'm making a healthy margin after all the costs

JasonLVC

satan666wayne wrote: »

I ordered some photo books from the USA. Is duty payable on photos?
my tracking info says.

EAST MIDLANDS AIRPOR, GB 10/22/200912:52 A.M.SHIPMENT ON HOLD AWAITING PAYMENT OF DUTY & TAX

A photobook is a pre-printed book, with digitial photographs printed into the pages. A photo album has blank pages which you stick picture into.

I lost a case against HMRC a few years back, trying to argue that these photobooks were more like books than albums, but lost .

For a photobook to be a book (and zero rated for VAT/duty) then there has to be a high proportion of words to pictures. Most photo books will simply have a one line caption for each photo and HMRC consider this doesnt 'convey' enough information to make it a book. So next time add lots of words, have a forward at the front and some other text as well if you help it.

So your photobook is a standard rated supply, if over £18 in value then it will be subject to duty and VAT at 15% plus whatever handling charge the courier sees fit to charge.