Import Coins - VAT

raddy59

OK

I bought 2 coins from Aus, value including post around £150 - paid about £8 VAT. (VAT scheduled B if I recall ?)

Mum bought 1 coin from Aus, value including post around £81 - VAT/Duty demand for £16.

Which one is right?
If the higher one is wrong how does she appeal?
Coins are silver, legal tender, sold as "numismatic".

nikki1520

What tariff code were they classified to? Gold and silver coins that are not legal tender have a duty rate of 0%, so only VAT at 20% to pay, plus the processing charge. Cant find legal tender in the tariff though - http://online.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/tariffSearch?export=false&expression=numismatic+coin&key.commodityCode=8519201000&resultPage=2&searchId=3&searchQueryId=871&simulationDate=3/11/11#8519201000

raddy59

nikki

My coins were tariff heading 9705000020
Collectible numismatics
Value £151.64
tax paid Total £7.58 Tax type B00 MOP F

Not sure what mim's details are - have to pick up the letter tomorrow

nikki1520

Ok, so these are classified as collectors pieces of gold and silver- no duty, just VAT. Linky:
http://online.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/tariffFilter?key.commodityCode=9705000020&simulationDate=6%2F11%2F11&export=false&x=42&y=2

So to sum up, you should have paid VAT on the purchase price and the delivery charges, and possibly (or not) the clearance fee (depends who did it - with Parcelforce it is free from VAT)

You can look up the details of your mum's on the same site. I suspect they have been differently classified!

shaun_from_Africa

Just for information and possibly for future purchases.

If you buy and import gold coins, provided that the cost of the coin is made up primarily by the value of the gold and not its rarity then you shouldn't have any import duty or VAT to pay

Any gold that is classed as "investment gold" is free of all import duty provided that it is correctly declared on the customs paperwork.

raddy59

So it looks like rather than mum getting *stung*, I was lucky and got off lightly ?

Tax code info from customs form:
A B C D E
Me B00 A 7.58 F

Mum B00 S VAT 16.56 F

Vatable value from both parcels was the same as the customs value. Mine was £152, mums was £83

One point - I have brought in a few coins from Aus. and a fair few (most) have been let through. These are the first 2 sent by FedEx and both were stopped.

Anthorn

The reason why some imports are charged VAT and some are not is that they've shot through customs without being checked. But the charging of VAT on coins of numismatic value is something of a grey area: Try finding information by searching online and on the HMRC website and the chances are that you won't find anything or anything you find is out of date. So we are very much at the mercy of HMRC.

btw whether coins are regarded as bullion or numismatic depends on the price paid which I am reliably informed is at least 180% of the base metal commodity price to be numismatic. If it's bullion there could be a need for an import licence.

Anyway, my reason for resurrecting this thread is that I've noticed a change in the transit time over the last few months from U.S.A. to U.K. for packages containing coins. This can be illustrated with my own items currently in transit: A parcel containing a Littleton coin album from Minnesota postmarked May 8th and sent by USPS First Class International reached me on May 11th (4 days) whereas a package containing coins sent by the same sender and by the same service is still in transit after two weeks! That's fairly typical of transit times over the last few months.

What that tells me is that customs are checking packages containing coins and there is a backlog. There is little difference in the transit times whether the customs declaration has "Numismatic" on it or not. So attention anyone who is putting their cash into coins and importing them.