Customs/Duty help

sherryspecial · 14 April 2007 at 10:53PM

Hi

Hope this is in the right thread... I wanna shop and not be dropped by customs. Hopefully someone can help me.

I want to purchase some equipment from a US website which comes to approx 670 USD or £340 including delivery. However, I'm not so sure of the customs/duty/tax that I might incur in having it imported to N.Ireland.

I'm confused and worried that if I go ahead with the order I might be hit with a hefty additional fee. And also, if you reckon I will get hit with a hefty fee, are there any ways of minimising it? So far I have been told to get the supplier to mark the box as a "sample" or a "gift" and to put a value of less than 30 USD on the invoice etc. (though i guess this would mess up any insurance on the parcel)

Anyway if anyone has any experience on this please let me know.

Many thanks

rsykes2000 · 15 April 2007 at 7:52AM

Under-declaring can cost a lot if it goes missing. Not worth it, IMO. Also, customs do open random boxes and check the contents, so if it was declared at $30 and it was worth 20 times that, they can still bill you for the actual cost of the item(s), not the declared cost.
Have you checked what the duty would be ? Different items have different rates, some even being exempt. Also, creative declarations can help - some watches I have bought from overseas have been declared as 'Horological Instruments', which is technically correct, but didn't get hit for duty whereas if marked as 'Watch' they would.
One last point - if it is being couriered over (eg Fed-Ex, DHL) (and I imagine for an order of this value it would be) you will get definitely hit by customs as they pay the duty for you then bill you a couple of weeks after delivery. If it's by regular Air Mail, these sometimes slip through unnoticed.

mouse10 · 15 April 2007 at 12:05PM

I ordered a watch on ebay from USA, got hit for 17.5% vat and £14 parcelforce handling charge, so you need to factor this in and decide if its still a bargain.