Duty Free - declaring goods

scottiescott

Good evening all


Has anybody on here ever gone through the Red Channel and actually declared goods over the limits set by HMRC?
I'm tempted to take back more than the allowed 1 litre of spirits from the Canaries and declaring it if necessary. By my reckoning the duty on a 70cl bottle of spirits would be £7-ish.
Thoughts?

Marcus-H_2

i would say go through the green channel & act dumb if you get stopped.
However, that prob breaks the rules for giving advice on here.

Mr_Wangers_Wang

You will get loads of people on here acting all self righteous, truth be told, its a disgraceful tax on holidaymakers.

If I was to buy, lets say $100's of worth of clothes from the various outlets in the US where Levi 501's pretty much £20 a pair, or Ralph Lauren shirts £20 a pop. Or lets just say for instance I brought 800 smokes back for a friend who may, or may not pay me £35 a sleeve.... I would just go through the green channel and not bat an eye lid.

So yeah, the taxman in the UK can take a large one without Vaseline as far as I'm concerned. Taxing holiday makers trying to save a few quid.

Absolute scam.

Teahfc

I dare say the amount of new suit cases full of cheaper clothes that stroll through the green channel from people arriving from the USA and don't get stopped is embarrassing, yes it's wrong to say go through the green channel knowingly you are over the limit but I have known someone to wrap up one in their case and walk through a duty free bag with the other ... [STRIKE]Worked at least 5 times on my last 5 trips :eek:[/STRIKE]

Doshwaster

Teahfc wrote: »

I dare say the amount of new suit cases full of cheaper clothes that stroll through the green channel from people arriving from the USA and don't get stopped is embarrassing, yes it's wrong to say go through the green channel knowingly you are over the limit but I have known someone to wrap up one in their case and walk through a duty free bag with the other ... [STRIKE]Worked at least 5 times on my last 5 trips :eek:[/STRIKE]

Done it loads of times. As long as you aren't being too obvious such as having loads of Macey's bags then the chances of getting stopped are minimal. With shoes and clothes I always throw away the packaging to save weight so how could they tell if they were new?

The Duty Free shops in the US always seems to have a "2 for $40" deal on bottles of spirits so it would be a shame to miss out on such a deal.

Of course once we leave the EU duty free limits could apply from all European countries so no more booze cruises to Calais or filling up a suitcase with cheap Spanish brandy.

shaun_from_Africa

Teahfc wrote: »

I dare say the amount of new suit cases full of cheaper clothes that stroll through the green channel from people arriving from the USA and don't get stopped is embarrassing,

If it's only "cheaper clothes" that you are buying, you would have to buy quite a lot to go over your £390 limit.

scottiescott, in answer to your question, yes, I've gone through the red channel and declared an excess of alcohol on many occasions (probably 10 or 11 times in the past few years) and I have only ever been charged once. (£7.74 on a 0.7L bottle of rum which was 40% ABV).
I regularly fly from Trinidad to the UK and with Trini being the home of Angostura rum, I often get asked for a couple of bottles.

Gloomendoom

I've declared excess alcohol once. I wasn't charged anything.

BobQ

Yes, if its a small amount it really is not worth them doing the paperwork.

Voyager2002

I have attempted to declare my imports, but no-one was on duty.

Voyager2002

Mr_Wangers_Wang wrote: »

You will get loads of people on here acting all self righteous, truth be told, its a disgraceful tax on holidaymakers.

SNIP
Taxing holiday makers trying to save a few quid.

Absolute scam.

Actually nothing to do with taxing holiday-makers, but a tax on imports. There are good reasons for this, and all import duties are laid down by parliament. So not a scam.

In practice, holiday-makers bringing in small amounts are often waved through without charge. Obviously, if there were no customs controls at airports then importers would bring their goods in that way, which would have all sorts of negative consequences.

London50

Marcus-H wrote: »

i would say go through the green channel & act dumb if you get stopped.
However, that prob breaks the rules for giving advice on here.

A totally stupid thing to do regarding the Canary islands, they have non EU taxing for drink and tobacco, customer in the UK know aircraft arrive from there can have over the duty allowance on the flight and are far more likely to search those flight.
Also there are plenty on places on the islands that inform you just what you can bring back so ignorance is no help and ALL of your goods bought can be removed from you.
OK you MIGHT be lucky {I have bee n} but overall it is a risk that COULD backfire.

Good on the OP for saying they are happy to use the red channel :beer: