Customs charges!

emmazoe

So, my partner bought some nicotine pouches from what we presumed was a UK site. It was actually coming from Sweden. The total amount was £24 including free shipping and this included the company collecting 20% vat at the point of sale.
We have now been hit with a £160.30 customs charge. Does anyone know where we stand on disputing this? It seems ridiculously excessive.

I should add that these are tobacco free nicotine pouches not Snus.

jon81uk

Maybe it was mis-classified as a tobacco or smoking product and therefore duty applied?
UK tax on smoking products is high. 
Tobacco Products Duty rates - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Import tobacco products into the UK - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

I've no idea what nicotine "pouches" are so not sure what the tax should be, but nicotine patches are medicine so only VAT applies. Whereas nicotine gel should be treated as tobacco according to this? Classifying tobacco for import and export - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Importing certain things since Brexit looks hard/expensive.

George_Michael

Looking at the figures quoted, it's possible that the sender declared the value in Swedish Krona and when calculating any duty, this was mistakenly taken as being £.
£24 is about Kr280 so if VAT, import duty and a handling fee was charged on £280, this would be a considerable sum especially if it was charged as tobacco.