Royal Mail £8 Internal Post Handling Fee scam?

custardy

growler834 wrote: »

Whether he was aware or not is immaterial. It's the fact that we are charged for receiving GIFTS that have already had tax paid on them at the point of sale. Both governments profit & no one gives a damn that thousands of families scattered across the world will be fleeced by the government because they want to exchange gifts for Christmas (or birthdays). We are just another easy target by Customs & Excise. Sigh...

Yup,which is sadly the case. However thats the ways it is.
Of course if we had a higher limit,no doubt the level of 'gifts' would be higher.
Same as all the 'commercial samples' that come from China to avoid tax.

marliepanda

growler834 wrote: »

Whether he was aware or not is immaterial. It's the fact that we are charged for receiving GIFTS that have already had tax paid on them at the point of sale. Both governments profit & no one gives a damn that thousands of families scattered across the world will be fleeced by the government because they want to exchange gifts for Christmas (or birthdays). We are just another easy target by Customs & Excise. Sigh...

The gift limit is £36. Thats a pretty generous tax free import allowance.

If he CHOSE to spend/declare more than £36 on each gift, that is his problem.

IN fact if he had spent more than 1 minute googling the import laws he could have found this out, and sent them all in one parcel! How lovely:

Sending more than one gift
If you’re sending more than one gift in the same parcel, you get the Customs Duty and VAT-free allowance for each gift if they’re:

for different people
listed separately on the customs declaration
wrapped individually

growler834

OK, so he didn't google it. He could have put them all in the same package however the recipients live hundreds of miles from each other. He actually spent about £30 on me & the same on his dad - however the cost of postage is also taken into account for VAT & he wouldn't have known the exact postage cost until he went to the post office. Also - he wasn't advised at the post office about itemising the gifts separately (yes they were gift wrapped separately) on the customs form so he put the total cost instead. Perhaps we are lucky that our local postmaster is very helpful with his advice when we post packages to Australia. It still sticks in my craw though that the government is making money on personal family gifts at Christmas time - from now on we will just cut out the middle man & pay for our own gifts, because that is what we have done anyway!

zax47

growler834 wrote: »

OK, so he didn't google it. He could have put them all in the same package however the recipients live hundreds of miles from each other. He actually spent about £30 on me & the same on his dad - however the cost of postage is also taken into account for VAT & he wouldn't have known the exact postage cost until he went to the post office.... <snip>

Re: bit in bold - not entirely accurate. IF the goods value alone exceeds the threshold then, and only then, the cost of postage/shipping taken into account and VAT is then calculated & charged on the total of the goods AND the postage cost. The postage cost is NOT included in deciding if the item is VAT and/or duty eligible or not.

powerful_Rogue

growler834 wrote: »

Whether he was aware or not is immaterial. It's the fact that we are charged for receiving GIFTS that have already had tax paid on them at the point of sale. Both governments profit & no one gives a damn that thousands of families scattered across the world will be fleeced by the government because they want to exchange gifts for Christmas (or birthdays). We are just another easy target by Customs & Excise. Sigh...

Cant see how. HMCE was dissolved in 2005.

sheramber

When my son was in Australia over the Christmas period he ordered online from UK companies and had the goods sent to us. No problem with importing goods.

doveman

I've always used DHL when ordering vitamins from the US as they only charged a couple of quid. Not any more! My last order for about £45 worth of goods came landed me with a charge from DHL of £19, which was £9.11 VAT and £9.89 Advance Payment charge for DHL paying the VAT for me, so I won't be using them in future.

zax47

doveman wrote: »

I've always used DHL when ordering vitamins from the US as they only charged a couple of quid. Not any more! My last order for about £45 worth of goods came landed me with a charge from DHL of £19, which was £9.11 VAT and £9.89 Advance Payment charge for DHL paying the VAT for me, so I won't be using them in future.

Good luck with that whole "wanting someone to do something for nothing" thing - of course you can always do it yourself for nothing, assuming that you feel your time & effort costs less than £9.89 of course. :T

Did you ask the sender to state "Goods to be cleared by importer" on all the paperwork (airwaybill, commercial invoice)? Then you could have done it yourself, arsed about filling in forms, travelling around the place, dealing with the intransigent monolith of HMRC and spending much more than you were charged, both in time and money....

If you had even the slightest clue of what's involved then you wouldn't be moaning and you'd think it was a bargain.

Keep_pedalling

doveman wrote: »

I've always used DHL when ordering vitamins from the US as they only charged a couple of quid. Not any more! My last order for about £45 worth of goods came landed me with a charge from DHL of £19, which was £9.11 VAT and £9.89 Advance Payment charge for DHL paying the VAT for me, so I won't be using them in future.

Your biggest waste of money was not the import charges but the £45 spent on pointless vitamin supplements, now that really is a rip off.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/dec/17/vitamin-supplements-waste-money-scientists

KxMx

I agree for many there is no need for supplements, however I an several others take different ones on medical advice, due to diagnosed medical problems. So OP may fall under that category