Brining cigarettes to UK penalty, please help

martinthebandit

powerful_Rogue wrote: »

I wouldnt worry about that. If it was a purchase made in the EU it would likely be one of the grounds of seizure, however because its a non-eu purchase its black and white.

Law says you can only bring in 200 cigarettes. You brought in 10,000 cigarettes.

The only relevant advice is that you need to seek legal advice regarding this, otherwise your going to end up with a bill of at least £11,500.

I thought that you only paid import duty/tax if you actually bought stuff into the country, as they cigs were seized how can he pay import duty?

Criminal trial for smuggling may be a different matter.

However, OP I know nothing about the matter, that advice you have already been given 'seek legal advice' is well worth heeding.

powerful_Rogue

martinthebandit wrote: »

I thought that you only paid import duty/tax if you actually bought stuff into the country, as they cigs were seized how can he pay import duty?

Criminal trial for smuggling may be a different matter.

However, OP I know nothing about the matter, that advice you have already been given 'seek legal advice' is well worth heeding.

Its the way the system works. The cigarettes were actually imported into the country.

If the OP had declared the 10,000 cigarettes, he could have paid the excise duty and kept the cigarettes. As he failed to declare them, he still has to pay the excise duty, however the goods are seized.

RuthnJasper

brat02 wrote: »

I smoke, my parents smoke, some friends... you really think that 50 cartons is a lot for heavy smokers?

but anyway... I have created this post to ask for help and to find out what is the best thing for me to do in this situation, not to answer questions like this, please try to understand, I am not trying to be rude now

Are you serious? That isn't an excuse for exceeding the restrictions so massively! Guidelines are very clear - I seriously doubt that you can't have had some inkling that you were going way over the limit.

If you are genuinely in this situation then, as suggested from the off, get proper legal advice and do your utmost to co-operate with the HMRC - this will have a serious and lasting effect on you (and your family) for the rest of your life. And !!!!!! try not to break any other laws whilst you are under investigation for this one.

justjohn

50 cartons you are pushing it. my "friend" used to bring back about 10 .....I thought "he" was pushing that. Plus 5 bottles of vodka. lol

Would seek urgent legal advice.

rustyboy21

I got stopped years ago at Manchester Airport for having 16 cartons from Gran Canaria. They took the cigs away, left me with 200 and placed a marker on my file. After that never went back to Canaries for quite a few years. Mainland Spain I brought loads back ( 22 Cartons) each holiday, twice a yearand no issue anytime, as the duty is paid on them and they were for me.


Matey, you brought back, what could only be described as a wholesale amount of cigs from a non EU country. The fact that most of the counterfit cigs are coming out of Eastern Europe, flags up so many danger signals. Even stating you were going to give some to your gran, parents, friends etc, won't wash. It would be deemed that you were going to sell them, to make a profit.


As others have said, get advice asap, from a good Solicitor, CAB just won't suffice here.

pogofish

Yup - It is important that when you go for advice, you go to a solicitor with experience in HMRC/Import-Export issues.

This is not likely to be your average CAB/high-street Brief.

leftfield20

Just out of interest on this thread, how was the figure for £11,500 owing calculated for 10,000 cigarettes? The tax owed can't be £1.15 for each cigarette surely?
I probably have misunderstood something so just checking!

browneyedbazzi

dfub wrote: »

Just out of interest on this thread, how was the figure for £11,500 owing calculated for 10,000 cigarettes? The tax owed can't be £1.15 for each cigarette surely?
I probably have misunderstood something so just checking!

The duty on cigarettes is currently 16.5% of the retail price (UK price) plus £184.10 per 1000 cigarettes. I believe you also pay VAT on the total amount (retail price + duty). The most recent published average retail price for 20 cigarettes I can find is £7.98 so I would calculate the owed duty + VAT at just shy of £3k...I'm not sure where the other poster got £11.5k from

powerful_Rogue

I worked it out as the average price of a packet being £6.

10,000 packets x £6 each = £60,000

16.5% of 60,000 = £9900

£184.10 for every 1000 cigarettes = £1841

£9900 + £1841 = £11,741

Dazedandconfused

powerful_Rogue wrote: »

I worked it out as the average price of a packet being £6.

10,000 packets x £6 each = £60,000

16.5% of 60,000 = £9900

£184.10 for every 1000 cigarettes = £1841

£9900 + £1841 = £11,741

It's 10000 cigs not packets