Vat and Import duty on hard drive-how much?

justaquestion

Hi everybody,

I have just bought a small 160 gb hard drive from Canada with software program on it. The cost was $164 us dollars thats $139 for hard drive and $25 for postage.

Probably will be hit badly for vat and import duty if customs in uk get a hold of it.

Anyone have any idea how much I will pay, and if there is a website that can help me calculate the amount?


Many thanks

JAG

If it is coming via the Royal Mail then £8 collection fee plus around 20% of the cost excluding postage (£20). So total of £28 would be my estimate.

JasonLVC

Its not user friendly but is the European database for all duty/goods.

http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/dds/cgi-bin/tarquer?Lang=EN

Start with typing in 'Storage'

Scroll down to 8523 Code and click on 8523000000.
Click on 8523 again
Click on 8523 21 - magnetic storage
Click on 8523 29 - other
Click on 8523 90 - other

Enter Canada in the drop down box

Click duty rates button

Voila.

3.5% duty on magnetic storage devices. The duty is charged on the selling price of the item and then VAT is added on top of that and then whatever charge Royal ail will hit you with (about £12 isn't it?)

justaquestion

Thanks for replies. Well they say that they are shipping by UPS express. Have you heard of them ...and should this make any difference to what I might have to pay?

Many thanks again.

JasonLVC

Spam has been reported.

Haffiana

You will have approx £14 to pay in Vat. There is no duty to pay as the value of the goods is below £120.

In addition, I am pretty sure that the duty code falls under 'disc drives', not 'storage' and therefore would be duty free whatever the price.

Whatever, you will have £14 to pay, plus whatever UPS charge for sorting out the VAT and duty for you. This will be approx £15 or so.

JasonLVC

Haffiana wrote: »

You will have approx £14 to pay in Vat. There is no duty to pay as the value of the goods is below £120.

In addition, I am pretty sure that the duty code falls under 'disc drives', not 'storage' and therefore would be duty free whatever the price.

Whatever, you will have £14 to pay, plus whatever UPS charge for sorting out the VAT and duty for you. This will be approx £15 or so.

Thanks Haffiana - I'm not upto speed on technology by the look of things - I'm guessing then 'storage' is floppy disks/3.5" disks as opposed to disk drives?