ARN Number - Correct Place to put it on parcel from UK to Australia? + HS Code Confusion.

Tunstallstoven

Hi

Apologies for posting so soon after my last thread. That had a lot of questions which have either been answered or ended up irrelevant. I'm now left with one old and one new question, as per the title.

There are many warnings not to put the ARN on any of the address lines. I can't put it anywhere else on the online form. If I write it manually, it won't be digitally available, part of the bar code, etc. So seems to be a lose/lose situation and I'm really not sure what to do. Any advice would be much appreciated as all this research is delaying me sending the parcel to the buyer. Yet at the same time, I want to make sure they actually receive it.

On top of that, I don't know what the correct HS Tariff code is. The Discogs invoice states 8523.49.2020. Royal Mail suggests 8523490028. Googling suggests both of these might be wrong, and opens up a huge can of worms.

All very stressful!

Any help would be very much appreciated.

Many thanks

MyRealNameToo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6686549/arn-number-correct-place-to-put-it-on-parcel-from-uk-to-australia-hs-code-confusion

How are you sending it? Some platforms have a field for Tax ID or Sender Tax Reference in which case you would put it there.

If not then write it next to where you put the customs declaration with something like GST Paid - Amazon ARN: [Insert the 12-digit number here] or whatever the appropriate platform is

Both HS codes are for optical media (eg CDs etc) but the first one is from the Australian scheme and is much broader and the second one is from the US scheme and is not commercial software, music or videos (ie its data on a disc)

Only the first 6 characters are universal, the last 4 digits are country specific. You should use the code appropriate to Australia as the recipient country not the US one.

Tunstallstoven

Hi

Many thanks for the helpful reply, much appreciated.

I was planning to send with RM. The issue there is that they only allow up to 8 items to be listed on the customs form. I have 12 CDs. Some say this can cause a problem. So I checked Parcel2Go last night, and using RM through them does allow 12 items to be listed on the customs form. So I was thinking P2G.

However, P2G won't allow for the ARN number to be listed in the address field. I've yet to confirm whether RM will allow this.

Thanks for the tip RE writing on the parcel. If all else fails I'll go with that. But I've also read the importance of having it available digitally to the systems…

Thanks also RE the HS codes. Interesting, as I'd have expected RM to be more likely to get it right. A least I know which one to use now though :) Can getting that wrong cause big problems, or so long as the first 6 digits are correct does it tend to be ok?

Thanks again

martindow

It is normal practice to look up codes from the sending country. The best place to look up commodity codes is the gov.uk site, which suggests 8523492000 for music cds

https://www.trade-tariff.service.gov.uk/commodities/8523492000

Often when looking up codes there can be a few that seem to more or less fit. Minor variations on the number are unlikely to cause problems as the VAT and duty treatment are probably the same. No doubt importing customs are used to codes not being exact, but unless it is related to deliberately misdeclaring to avoid tax and duty it will be fine.