Apparently incorrect customs charge on gift from abroad

FancyThat

I received a note from Parcelforce yesterday requesting a payment for a parcel sent from Japan, specifically £13.86 Import VAT plus a clearance fee of £13.50 – i.e. a total of £27.36.

I emailed my friend in Japan who said it was from him, and contained a Christmas card, a calendar and a CD.

Now, assuming the stated £13.86 VAT is at 20%, seems that the parcel has been valued by HMRC/Border Agency at £69.30 ex-VAT, £83.16 inc-VAT.

According to Amazon Japan, the 'list' price of the CD is ￥1,890 - around £14. As for the calendar, hard to say the price without seeing it, but the picture calendars on Amazon Japan are typically around ￥1,500 - around £11. And the Christmas card, say £4 maximum? (In fact, would a card even count towards the value of a parcel - once written, does it have any saleable value as such?)

Anyway, I reckon the total value of the parcel's contents would be around £29 maximum - well within the £40 threshold for receiving gifts and definitely much less than the calculated £69.30/£83.16 figure.

So I thought I'd give somebody a quick call to sort it out. But who?

As far as I can see, Parcelforce only have contacts for making payment.

HMRC appear to only have general information on charges (their Notice 143), and their form BOR286 for incorrect charges seems to require that I already have possession of the parcel, as well as invoices/receipts for the goods (how do you get that from somebody who has sent it as a gift?) as well as a statement in writing from teh sender confirming that it is a gift.

So what are the options? Seems to be either:
1) pay to have the parcel delivered and then go through some routine to try and claim the charges back - and would the Parcelforce clearance fee be reimbursed anyway?

2) just let the parcel be returned to my friend in Japan who would than have to pay to send it again in the hope that it got through OK next time? (I suppose I could send him something to cover the second postage costs and it would still be a lot less than the £27.36 being asked now - but why should we be covering the costs for appears to be a mistaken charge?)

Any thoughts/help/advice? It all seems very Kafka-esque...

maninthestreet

Did your friend declare a value for the package contents when he posted it?

FancyThat

maninthestreet wrote: »

Did your friend declare a value for the package contents when he posted it?

I'm not sure. And communication is not always clear, with the language difference. (Although his English is much better than my Japanese!)

In his email, apart from listing the contents, he says:

"I may be not enough to sendding.
EMS ( as usual)( I do not write Invoice )
http://www.post.japanpost.jp/int/ems/index_en.html "

(Out of interest, I followed the link and tried to track the parcel with the references given in the note from Parcelforce but just got a 'not found'' message.)

No idea whether that helps at all.

whitelabel

Ive called HMRC before to query an invoice amount, I had to send details of value andthey re evaluated it, as they didnt believe the declared value (which was a little low)

Evilm

Just done a calculation on the duty calculator with 1890Yen value and 1800 Yen shipping (a shot in the dark) and it comes out saying no duty due:


http://www.dutycalculator.com/new-import-duty-and-tax-calculation/saved_calculations/view_details/145059666/

Miss_Havisham

Sounds like they've made a mistake. I thought the letter from Parcelforce contains a number for HMRC in case you need to query the duty ?

KxMx

Maybe it was not marked as a gift but as goods?
Limit for goods is £15.

FancyThat

Well, I sent an email to the only address I could find for Customs, explaining the situation and asking if they could forward it to the correct department. (Wonder what are the chances of that happening - place your bets.)

Since then, my friend in Japan has been in touch again and says he's not certain that he indicated that the parcel was a gift. So that could explain things. (But still the value figure used by Customs seems very high, even if it includes the postage charges.)

Anyway, he says he'll wait until it gets returned and post it again.

Still, in an ideal world there would be a number to call to point out whatever mistake was made (if indeed there was a mistake made in this case - I have no way of finding that out as things stand without paying the £27.36 charge!).

mr_sharma

There's a special form ( form BOR286) you can fill out. I did this several weeks ago and haven't heard back from the UKBA though. Hmmmm!

Link:

http://search2.hmrc.gov.uk/kb5/hmrc/forms/view.page?record=ybGpIuVACI0&formId=5205

My advice is to send it recorded delivery.