UPS customs or other fees - unfair?

twinklestar111

Hi, 

I import crochet items from a lady who makes them for me in Turkey, she has recently made me a large order (value £1450), I have paid the shipping costs to her (£60). She posted in Istanbul and its reached the UK and is coming to me on Monday via UPS. She gave me the tracking info and I have checked the status, it says I need to pay £475 (Government Charges). What are these? It does not show me a proper invoice of what they actually are? It`s not showing as VAT? If it was VAT on £1450 that should be less than £300?

You try and contact UPS but you can`t speak to anyone or they don`t understand your issue. I can`t not pay the amount due because they wont give me the package without payment, if I don`t pay online before Monday then the driver will knock on the door and only give me the parcel if I pay him at the doorstep. I have ordered many times before and had no problems but the value is usually not this much so I have always just paid the amount they request.

Any help or advice on what I should do? It feels to me like UPS just pluck a figure out of thin air and say you owe that and they get away with it and as a business you can`t do anything about it?

Is there any way I can claim some of this £475 back from the government if I do pay it? If so how do I go about this?

Thanks in advance for any help

DullGreyGuy

twinklestar111 said:

Hi, 

I import crochet items from a lady who makes them for me in Turkey, she has recently made me a large order (value £1450), I have paid the shipping costs to her (£60). She posted in Istanbul and its reached the UK and is coming to me on Monday via UPS. She gave me the tracking info and I have checked the status, it says I need to pay £475 (Government Charges). What are these? It does not show me a proper invoice of what they actually are? It`s not showing as VAT? If it was VAT on £1450 that should be less than £300?

You try and contact UPS but you can`t speak to anyone or they don`t understand your issue. I can`t not pay the amount due because they wont give me the package without payment, if I don`t pay online before Monday then the driver will knock on the door and only give me the parcel if I pay him at the doorstep. I have ordered many times before and had no problems but the value is usually not this much so I have always just paid the amount they request.

Any help or advice on what I should do? It feels to me like UPS just pluck a figure out of thin air and say you owe that and they get away with it and as a business you can`t do anything about it?

Is there any way I can claim some of this £475 back from the government if I do pay it? If so how do I go about this?

Thanks in advance for any help

Depending on what the items are:

1) Importation Duty
2) VAT which will be on the fully landed cost (inc shipping and duty)
3) UPS handling fee

HMRC calculate how much is due, UPS pay that for you, UPS bills you what they've paid HMRC plus a handling fee. With every courier I've used a straight forward breakdown is available from the courier beofre payment.

If the item is alcohol, tobacco, perfume etc then Excise Duty would also be added.

You can only reclaim the VAT if you are VAT registered but then you will be charging your customers VAT and so will be worse off than not being VAT registered. The others are business expenses and so will offset against your revenue and so reduce your tax liability.

powerful_Rogue

s105 (3) Postal Services Act 2000 allows UPS to collect the duty owed.

s105 (4a) Postal Services Act 2000 allows UPS to detain the parcel until the fees are paid.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/26/section/105

Devongardener

If your previous imports have been below £135 then you wouldn’t have been charged import duties and VAT.  That is the limit for tax free imports. 

UPS should give you a proper breakdown of the charges and you should insist on that.

 It’s also worth checking what your supplier is entering on their shipping documents to make sure they are classifying the goods with the right tariff.   You can look that up here https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiD39W6xsf_AhWxg_0HHXabAOYQFnoECAgQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gov.uk%2Ftrade-tariff&usg=AOvVaw2Kst_R5JiO8iSKUtzjxwul

superbigal

You are 100% subject to 20% Import VAT and the UPS handling Fee.
Your import Duty should probably be 0% but I suspect you have been charged 10%. Will leave that for you to work out via the powers of google.
As earlier detailed if you are UK Vat registered you can reclaim the 20%.

Spoonie_Turtle

Devongardener said:

If your previous imports have been below £135 then you wouldn’t have been charged import duties and VAT.  That is the limit for tax free imports. 

UPS should give you a proper breakdown of the charges and you should insist on that.

£135 is the threshold for Customs Duties, and now online collection of Import VAT. 

Before 2021 there was a £15 threshold for Import VAT, now that is 0 (except for gifts, which have a threshold of £39). 

twinklestar111

Thanks for the replies everyone, I did sort of already know all this information it was just annoying they don`t actually break it down and when contacting them I don`t get a proper invoice with the breakdowns which is why I was so frustrated and wrote the post

Spoonie_Turtle

twinklestar111 said:

Thanks for the replies everyone, I did sort of already know all this information it was just annoying they don`t actually break it down and when contacting them I don`t get a proper invoice with the breakdowns which is why I was so frustrated and wrote the post

Understandable, that feels like it's a very weird way to be charging people money.  I don't know what the custom is for couriers but you'd think they really should detail the makeup of the charges.

martindow

As superbigal says upthread, duty appears to have been incorrectly charged.  Looking here I think this is the correct page to find the commodity code

https://www.trade-tariff.service.gov.uk/chapters/61

Click on the options to find the most appropriate description and it will give you the duty rate that should be applied. For most there is an 'all countries' rate of 12%, but scrolling down it looks as if when importing from Turkey duty should be 0%.

I would go back to UPS to get a breakdown as suggested and query the duty charge.  It is possible the seller has used an incorrect commodity code or used none at all which won't have helped.  Have UPS already delivered the shipment or are they holding it until payment is made?  If it is being held, you need to get it sorted as after a certain time they may return the shipment to Turkey.

UPS is one of the better carriers to deal with.  Good luck!