what would you bring back?

phatbear

Im a customs officer and I can assure you the limit has not gone up to £1000 per person, apparently its being looked at and would need to be approved by the E.U however i think France and Germany arent keen on the move.


So for the time being a travellers personal allowance is £145, I know it doesnt apply in this case but just to make it clear thats £145 per person this amount can not be added to together for a family etc for more expensive goods.

If goods are found on you which is above and beyond the £145 you will be charged duty + vat on the whole amount, not just the excess over the £145. It is also an offence not to declare such things when passing through customs, being caught would lead to you ending up with a customs record.

Sorry to be a killjoy

dragonfly02

thanx for that Phatbear, i've been looking all over the web and there is so much conflicting information around that it would be easy to make a mistake if this weren't pointed out

barmonkey

phatbear wrote:

Im a customs officer and I can assure you the limit has not gone up to £1000 per person, apparently its being looked at and would need to be approved by the E.U however i think France and Germany arent keen on the move.


So for the time being a travellers personal allowance is £145, I know it doesnt apply in this case but just to make it clear thats £145 per person this amount can not be added to together for a family etc for more expensive goods.

If goods are found on you which is above and beyond the £145 you will be charged duty + vat on the whole amount, not just the excess over the £145. It is also an offence not to declare such things when passing through customs, being caught would lead to you ending up with a customs record.

Sorry to be a killjoy

it appears you are correct. i read at the time of the budget that this had been changes, not that he wanted to change it.
£145 is a waste of time. last time i went to the states we brought back about £1800 worth of stuff between 2 adults and 1 child. went through the red channel and declaired £500, nice man just waved us through.

pavlovs_dog

so im confused....

is it £145, according to the value of what its worth over here, or $270 odd dollars worth (ie what you paid for it over there)??

im off in september, and the main thing im planning on buying to bring back (other than general souveneers) was clothes (for me, and family members). if things have no tags or labels on, and the xray machines see a suitcase full of clothes go through, how is anyone going to be any the wiser that i have, god forbid, gone on holiday to have a good time, and spent over £145?!!!!!!!!!!!

i dont understand this customs lark!

fatboyonadiet

Not sure about ipods etc as had a look into it myself and wasn't that much cheaper than those already on eBay. Check out any sales going on as even cheaper items will improve your profit margin (I'm just stating the obvious there aren't I?!)

Maybe think about Secure Digital memory cards, the few UK sellers that stock these get well more than the Far East sellers, anything less than £20 for a 512 is your best bet.

Tojo_Ralph

pavlovs_dog wrote:

is it $270 odd dollars (£145) worth (ie what you paid for it over there)??

Yes

pavlovs_dog wrote:

If things have no tags or labels on, and the xray machines see a suitcase full of clothes go through, how is anyone going to be any the wiser that i have, god forbid, gone on holiday to have a good time, and spent over £145?

From experience, No, however, rather than take any chances, wear what you can, remove all tags as suggested, refold new stuff you haven't worn, and most importantly, if you want to keep credit card receipt, till receipts etc, don't hand carry them home, stick them in an envelope and post them back to your home address.

BigDunc

Is the plastic wristband (e.g. Lance Armstrong's Live Stong) craze dead? I was in NY last week and bought a couple from the Statue of Liberty for my 13 year-old son for 2$. He could have sold them a school friend for £10.

fatboyonadiet

Think the wristbands got for peanuts on eBay now, the only ones that get any decent money are the Anti-racism ones, but there is so many fakes and made-up ones on there it's not worth it anymore

pavlovs_dog

Tojo_Ralph wrote:

Yes


From experience, No, however, rather than take any chances, wear what you can, remove all tags as suggested, refold new stuff you haven't worn, and most importantly, if you want to keep credit card receipt, till receipts etc, don't hand carry them home, stick them in an envelope and post them back to your home address.

tojo ralph - you're cunning...and i like it :T

phatbear

I of course cannot encourage purchasing items above and beyond the £145 limit, but no seasoned customs officer is going to jump all over you for a bit of extra duty on clothes, however bags full of I-Pods etc are a different story, and as fatboyonadiet said they're not that much cheaper in the U.S.

Regarding the is it £145 or $270 odd, we atcustoms have a daily figure which we calculate such things on, but again no officer is going to argue the toss about pennies or even a few pounds.

One thing of note, again re fatboyonadiet, theres no such thing as a fake standup speakup band, odd it may be, but I recently detained 100,000+ of these bands, but it later came to light that Nike never copyrighted the term Standup Speakup, so as long as they dont bear the Nike logo they arent a problem, its an odd old world aint it.