The Nice People Thread, No.16: A Universe of Niceness.

silvercar

PN wrote:

No doubt other NPs will confess to owning them too ... as there are a lot of posh 'uns here

Guilty.

m wrote:

we probably use half a £1 bag of ice a day

That is a lot of ice.

PN wrote:

I'd worry about an icemaker and cleaning it ... and gunge accumulating.

Never had any gunge, never needed cleaning. Even when the freezer broke and the ice melted and refroze there was no gunge.

michaels, if you don't fix it, that is a lot of wasted space in the freezer - can you remove it and buy a spare shelf to use the space?
I would check out the manufacturer and see if there is a repair service. Samsung were excellent when my fridge/ freezer broke down.

Pyxis

Does anyone know anything about paying Customs Duty on stuff ordered from Australia?
(Not perfume, not tobacco etc., and value less than €150).





Edit. It looks like Royal Mail may have applied a Customs Duty charge and their handling fee for it where one isn't necessary. The total goods were £57 inc. p&p.

The Customs Charge I had to pay to get the goods delivered was £19.72, (which includes the Royal Mail's handling fee of £8).

Looking at the gov webpage for Customs Duty, it says that goods which aren't perfume or tobacco coming into the EU from non-EU countries only incur a charge if they are over £135 total.

The price for the goods quoted on its website was in £s and said VAT included.


I am very puzzled.

So I am at a loss to know why I was charged this

chris_m

Pyxis wrote: »

Does anyone know anything about paying Customs Duty on stuff ordered from Australia?
(Not perfume, not tobacco etc., and value less than €150).

If any Import Duty and/or VAT is due, then the carrier who gets it to deliver to you will usually send you a letter advising that they have it and will release it to you once you've paid what is due.

The duty will depend on the rate chargeable for the product, whilst the VAT is generally applied if the value of the goods exceeds £18, but will then be charged for the value plus the shipping cost which, hopefully the sender will have included on the declaration label.

If they haven't included the shipping cost, then HMRC use a sliding scale of charges to estimate the shipping cost. This is not always the best result for the recipient since it apparently starts at quite a high figure.
DHL (who used to bill after delivery) once tried to get me to pay a VAT bill that was greater than the cost of the item itself. I told them to send me a proper bill and I would happily pay that, but there was no way that I was paying VAT at over 100%. Never heard a thing back from them

chris_m

Pyxis wrote: »

Looking at the gov webpage for Customs Duty, it says that goods which aren't perfume or tobacco coming into the EU from non-EU countries only incur a charge if they are over £135 total.

Unless it's changed, I don't think that is correct - I have been charged, and had expected to be charged, duty (at 6.7%) for camera lenses where the value was definitely below £135.

Pyxis

chris_m wrote: »

If any Import Duty and/or VAT is due, then the carrier who gets it to deliver to you will usually send you a letter advising that they have it and will release it to you once you've paid what is due.

The duty will depend on the rate chargeable for the product, whilst the VAT is generally applied if the value of the goods exceeds £18, but will then be charged for the value plus the shipping cost which, hopefully the sender will have included on the declaration label.

If they haven't included the shipping cost, then HMRC use a sliding scale of charges to estimate the shipping cost. This is not always the best result for the recipient since it apparently starts at quite a high figure.
DHL (who used to bill after delivery) once tried to get me to pay a VAT bill that was greater than the cost of the item itself. I told them to send me a proper bill and I would happily pay that, but there was no way that I was paying VAT at over 100%. Never heard a thing back from them

Well, I wondered if, despite it saying that VAT was included, maybe it hadn't been, so maybe the charge was for that, but after removing the handling fee from the total Customs charge, the VAT on the value of the goods plus p&p doesn't equate to what I have paid as a customs charge.

And I've doublechecked the website I got the goods from and it deffo says that VAT is included, anyway.

I am confused.com

As regards Customs Duty on goods from outside the EU......
Ref.
https://www.gov.uk/goods-sent-from-abroad/tax-and-duty
That's where I got the info I mentioned.

chris_m

Pyxis wrote: »

Well, I wondered if, despite it saying that VAT was included, maybe it hadn't been, so maybe the charge was for that, but after removing the handling fee from the total Customs charge, the VAT on the value of the goods plus p&p doesn't equate to what I have paid as a customs charge.

It's pretty close though - 20.56%

As regards Customs Duty on goods from outside the EU......
Ref.
https://www.gov.uk/goods-sent-from-abroad/tax-and-duty
That's where I got the info I mentioned.

Looks like it must have changed, I don't recall a waiver for values below £135.

PasturesNew

There's an online calculator for that stuff that I found once when I was idly pondering importing stuff from India.

The main problem can be identifying the correct section/sub-section that the goods actually belong in.

You could give this random Google result a whirl
https://www.dutycalculator.com/

It is all very confusing as various words/charges are bandied about when you bring stuff in from furren places.

Pyxis

PasturesNew wrote: »

There's an online calculator for that stuff that I found once when I was idly pondering importing stuff from India.

The main problem can be identifying the correct section/sub-section that the goods actually belong in.

You could give this random Google result a whirl
https://www.dutycalculator.com/

It is all very confusing as various words/charges are bandied about when you bring stuff in from furren places.

Well, unless there's an adequate explanation in the parcel paperwork when it does finally arrive, I shall reclaim the charges from Customs and Excise and see what they say.

If it is VAT, even though it doesn't seem be 20%, I shall ask the website why they have stated that VAT is included in the price quoted.

PasturesNew

It'll turn out to be "Random/made up default charge we make to all customers because we can and because we hid this on page 6 of our tiny writing document, right at the end of a big chunk so you didn't notice - and after you've sweated and gnashed and stomped for weeks we'll point it out in a patronising way and close the case"

That's how the world works these days.

Pyxis

PasturesNew wrote: »

It'll turn out to be "Random/made up default charge we make to all customers because we can and because we hid this on page 6 of our tiny writing document, right at the end of a big chunk so you didn't notice - and after you've sweated and gnashed and stomped for weeks we'll point it out in a patronising way and close the case"

That's how the world works these days.

Yes, and that's how firms lose customers! Bye bye Etsy!




Never had any of this problem ordering stuff from EU countries.