import duty

sheilavw

Hi wonder if any one can help. My Husband ordered an exhaust system for his motorbike from USA. Including shipping it was £206 . just had lett from Royal mail. import duty £17.45. VAT £68.50 parcelforce clearance fee £8.00 total £93.50. It says pay it then query if disagree. VAT seems an awful lot on such an amount? Is this correct?

RufusA

Looks all wrong to me!

I think Motorcycle exhausts fall under motorcycle parts - other (commodity code 8714190000) and therefore should attract only 3.7% import duty.

In which case charging £17.45 means they are valuing the system and shipping costs at over £450!

Based on that (wrong) valuation I'd expect the VAT to be over £80, which it clearly isn't.

So by the looks of things the sender put the wrong value, AND wrong commodity code on the customs declaration.

Best bet is to wait until you get the goods, and paperwork. Then write to the UK Border Agency that processed the goods, asking them to review the costs. Make sure you keep the customs declaration, charge label, address label etc.

Some more information if available on the HMRC website:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/customs/post/paying-tax.htm

By my crude calculations based on £206 value:

Duty = 206*3.7% = £7.62
VAT = (206 + 7.62)*17.5% = £37.38

Good luck - Rufus.

caroc

The vat will be charged on the total cost of bringing the part over. Eg. Part + customs duty + any shipping costs + insurance costs + your 'clearance' fee and anything else that was charged to facilitate the import. Those costs are all added up and then the VAT is 17.5 % of that sum

quoia

The princely sum of £391.43 would attract a VAT amount of £68.50

Not sure how you arrive at a valuation of £391.43 but ......