TNT Vat handling fee

taliz

I bought a tent from china for $25 (£14.50).. It was delivered last week and I got an invoice from TNT today for £20.96.

They state £2.96 is vat but it is unclear from the paperwork what the remaining £18 is for. I assume it is some form of handling fee but seems phenomenally disproportionate.

I will query this but does anyone have any experience of this?

daytona0

taliz wrote: »

I bought a tent from china for $25 (£14.50).. It was delivered last week and I got an invoice from TNT today for £20.96.

They state £2.96 is vat but it is unclear from the paperwork what the remaining £18 is for. I assume it is some form of handling fee but seems phenomenally disproportionate.

I will query this but does anyone have any experience of this?

Umm did you pay JUST 14.50?? Because I doubt a tent plus postage rom china costs 14.50 total....

taliz

Really useful post that one; thanks a lot.
It answered all the queries raised. :T You make the world a better place.......:mad:

marliepanda

What Daytona means is that customs takes into account postage charge too.

So you should have customs import charges to pay on the amount too. Surely you invoice doesnt just say

VAT £2.96
Misc - £18

Total: £21

taliz

It Says:
VT 2.96
DT 0.00
DPF £15
NET £17.96

Net Vatable £15
Vat 20% £3
Total £20.96
Thats it.

It also come with an import entry acceptence advice slip saying, Invoice value £14.81. Extra revenue detail due £2.96 Tax type B00.

They also include an advice sheet which says, all items shipped to uk with a value of more than £18 are liable for uk tax.

I am happy to pay the vat and have no issue with it. I was under the impression that duty is not charged if less than £9 (though not sure on this). It's the £15+vat that erks me. It is simply listed on the invoice as DPF with no key as to what this means.

visidigi

Deferment Processing Fee.

Its the fee TNT charge for processing your clearance quickly and advancing the payment to HMRC to allow them to release your package for delivery.

The £15+VAT (so its actually £18 of your total) will seem disproportionate on the basis your order was a low value, but the fee is the minimum they charge, if you had a really valuable order it would revert to a % of total - 2% I believe.

The weird thing is the VAT is £2.96 - which given that's 20% of its value means you have been assessed on £14.80 so the question then comes up, if its £14.80 value why have you been charged anything at all as the minimum for clearance is usually £18.

So the question then comes up as to what exactly it was declared as. As clearly you haven't qualified for any form of basic value relieffor some reason.

bris

You import and they make it easy by doing the paperwork you would struggle to do getting your item delivered with the minimum of disruption to you.

This handling fee is for custom clearance is a bargain but unfortunately they cant win because there is still a lot of people who think that there is nothing to do but just wait for delivery for the bargain they got from the far east.

It's nobodies fault but your own that you didn't know that customs would be charged when you import from outside the EU.

George_Michael

Taliz,
Was the tent delivered from China or did the seller arrange for it to be sent from elsewhere (Channel islands for example). I know that this is unlikely, but that is the only reason that you should have been charged VAT as personal imports from a few places don't have a minimum amount before VAT is payable.

The £15 import limit (it was lowered from £18 a couple of years ago) is for the price of the goods only and shouldn't include any postal charges.
The postage should only be taken into account once the intrinsic value of the goods themselves is over the £15.

YOu should certainly query it with TNT and possibly HMRC as well.

taliz

Thank you for the replies and two great responses from Visidigi and George Michael. Indeed, the fact sheet that accompanied the invoice stated that vat and duty shouldn't be charged on goods of this value so I will certainly query this on Monday as the item was shipped directly from China.

I would also like to thank Bris for his ([FONT=&quot]rant)[/FONT] response in support of the multinational conglomerate over the average man on the street (not sure he quite gets the ethos of the forums). I agree, there is no one to blame but myself for not being more thorough in my research but the seller did tell me the item would be shipped by china post and not TNT so this issue should never have arisen. However, thank you for your comments and I consider myself well and truly told off....