Her Majesty's Customs and Excise.

[Stephen Furley]

It seems to be taking forever for things to clear customs at the moment; maybe a lot of their staff are on holiday.  I'm waiting for five parcels from the US, one telephone from Ericophon.com, three won on Ebay and a box of parts from Old phone works.  I haven't even had the letters asking me to pay the tax on them yet.  The first of these has been three weeks now.  A couple of cords on which there was no tax to pay got here in three days.

Two of the telephones are Bakelite; fingers crossed that they get here ok, unlike the Kellogg last year.

[LarryInMichigan]

Stephen,

Do you get any online confirmation that the packages have arrived in the UK?  I suppose that we are much more fortunate here.  I have received some packages from overseas, and they have all arrived fairly quickly with no taxes or damage.

Larry

[gpo706]

I got stiffed £48 from HMRC when I went to pick up my 1C2 from the post office years ago, nice!

[LarryInMichigan]

I got stiffed £48 from HMRC when I went to pick up my 1C2 from the post office years ago, nice!

That sounds like official robbery

Larry

[Stephen Furley]

Gpo706, of course you're right, it's Revenue and Customs now, I'm several years behind the times.

Three things arrived in the post today.  Two of them managed to slip through without tax being charged, that hasn't happened for ages.  The third was the bill for £8.67 in tax.  That amount doesn't seem correct, 20%, for any of the three telephones which I'm expecting.  The tax isn't to bad, but the Parcelforce Worldwide clearance fee for collecting it seems very high at £8.  For small items it's often more than the tax itself, and much more than DHL charge.

[Owain]

Gpo706, of course you're right, it's Revenue and Customs now, I'm several years behind the times.

Three things arrived in the post today.  Two of them managed to slip through without tax being charged, that hasn't happened for ages.  The third was the bill for £8.67 in tax.  That amount doesn't seem correct, 20%, for any of the three telephones which I'm expecting.  The tax isn't to bad, but the Parcelforce Worldwide clearance fee for collecting it seems very high at £8.  For small items it's often more than the tax itself, and much more than DHL charge.

As well as VAT at 20%, there may also be Customs Duty. There are around 14,000 different classifications. The duty rate percentage for each may vary according to the country the goods come from. The average percentage is between 5 and 9 per cent, but it can be as low as 0 per cent or as high as 85 per cent.

[dsk]

Here in Norway, they the let it trough if value is less than NOK 200 = £20 
When its more they add on VAT 25% and maybe tax. And of-course a handling fee of about £15!

So when ordering something it may be better to split the order, and pay more porto, and less tax.

dsk