ridiculous customs charges

search

hi folks

can anyone shed any light on this.

i bought some vitamin supplements for my parrots from the usa which cost me £60.16 for the products and then £21.36 for the shipping.

i have just had to fork out
£16.99 for excise duty
£26.20 for vat
parcelforce fee £8.00
total £51.19

whilst i understand the parcelforce fee although still not happy with it, i cant understand the vat on a product which cost me £60.16, therefore im being charged at 43%, if theyre charging me vat on the postage as well then i'm being charged 32%. i dont understand this as well, and as for the import duty, im totally baffled, i cant beleive that ive paid 85% of the value of the actual product. any replies most appreciated.

thanks

vicki_b

whilst i cant help you..i wanted to say thanks for your post as i asked a question the other day about customs charges on ebay items+you've managed to put me completely off buying owt from america!that is LUDICROUS!!!!!!!!have you checked on customs+excise website?i think you may've been one of the unlucky ones as most people that answered my post said they have always been lucky and not been charged

mute_posting

Excise duty is charged on most things as they enter the country. Usually you aren't the importer, Boots or Tesco or whoever you ususlly shop at are and deal with this - but for personal imports, you are liable and have to pay it.

AFAIK, VAT is then charged on top of the value of the goods + import duty etc

You are lucky it came Parcel Farce - I think Royal Mail charge an £11 fee for dealing with customs.

PinkLipgloss

Martin wrote a great article on this topic:

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/best-buy-usa#customs

Tesco_points_addict

uh oh am wories now, ordered some shoes £75 approx from USA last wk, will i have to pay customs? ops

JohalaReewi

In most cases you will have to pay customs duty, VAT and, for some goods such as alcohol and tobacco, excise duty as well. Plus the infamous 'handling fee'. Details on HMRC website.
http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageTravel_ShowContent&propertyType=document&resetCT=true&id=HMCE_CL_001454

JohalaReewi

search wrote: »

hi folks

can anyone shed any light on this.

i bought some vitamin supplements for my parrots from the usa which cost me £60.16 for the products and then £21.36 for the shipping.

i have just had to fork out
£16.99 for excise duty
£26.20 for vat
parcelforce fee £8.00
total £51.19

whilst i understand the parcelforce fee although still not happy with it, i cant understand the vat on a product which cost me £60.16, therefore im being charged at 43%, if theyre charging me vat on the postage as well then i'm being charged 32%. i dont understand this as well, and as for the import duty, im totally baffled, i cant beleive that ive paid 85% of the value of the actual product. any replies most appreciated.

thanks

VAT is calculated on the whole lot (goods + shipping + insurance + duty + fees). Even then, it does seem a bit high. Perhaps you can query it with customs?

The goods value they use can be the declared value on the customs slip so even though it cost you £60, if the sender put the value as £100 you could pay duty & VAT on the £100 figure, not £60. Doing some rough calcs, it would seem that for VAT of £26, the total amount for VAT would be about £147. Take off the duty (£17) gives you about £130. From what I can see on the HMRC site, the duty rate would be about 13% which gives a goods figure of about £130 so it looks like maybe customs decided the goods were valued at £130 (or thereabouts).

search

ive wrote to customs this morning asking how its all calculated, its a shame that based on charges like this its pointless shopping in the usa, i guess ill see what customs response is.

thanks for those of you who've replied.

krisskross

Next time break it down into smaller amounts if possible. I think under £18 value can come in for nothing. I often buy from Amazon.com and have never been charged.

Brooker_Dave

search wrote: »

hi folks

can anyone shed any light on this.

i bought some vitamin supplements for my parrots from the usa which cost me £60.16 for the products and then £21.36 for the shipping.

i have just had to fork out
£16.99 for excise duty
£26.20 for vat
parcelforce fee £8.00
total £51.19

whilst i understand the parcelforce fee although still not happy with it, i cant understand the vat on a product which cost me £60.16, therefore im being charged at 43%, if theyre charging me vat on the postage as well then i'm being charged 32%. i dont understand this as well, and as for the import duty, im totally baffled, i cant beleive that ive paid 85% of the value of the actual product. any replies most appreciated.

thanks

Did they read $130 as £130 and charge you accordingly?

custardy

mute_posting wrote: »

Excise duty is charged on most things as they enter the country. Usually you aren't the importer, Boots or Tesco or whoever you ususlly shop at are and deal with this - but for personal imports, you are liable and have to pay it.

AFAIK, VAT is then charged on top of the value of the goods + import duty etc

You are lucky it came Parcel Farce - I think Royal Mail charge an £11 fee for dealing with customs.

its £8,as i replied to your post yesterday

http://www.postoffice.co.uk/portal/po/content1?catId=19100180&mediaId=19100260