Hi, I was thinking of buying a titanium pan. I found the pan on ebay by a USA seller. The seller says they will mark the pan as a gift and also mark value as $40 (£25). Gifts up to a certain value , certainly below £25, don't incur VAT on arrival to UK and therefore would not incur the £8 Royal Mail handling charge. My question is, has anyone done something similar and did you end up paying VAT or Royal mail costs ? thanks, Alastair
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 Yes I've bought plenty from USA.
Tax is charged on marked value+p/p costs, so depends on postal costs, but otherwise I'd say you should't be liable on $40, for a private person to private person transaction. Both addresses must not look like business addresses.
If no Tax to be collected then no handling charge either.
You 'should' be OK.
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 Anything under £38 marked as a 'gift' won't get taxed. Be aware that the £38 includes the postage, so make sure the total is below that.
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 >The seller says they will mark the pan as a gift and also mark value as $40 (£25)
Very nice of them. I wonder if "being stoopid" is a qualification for working at C&E?
>Tax is charged on marked value+p/p costs
Not strictly true... you can't "mark" a Rolex watch as $100 and only get charged on that basis. If the stated value is obviously wrong then C&E will assess it and its then for you to challenge the valuation and Tax due.
I gave a US friend an unwanted GSI dualist pan set. He misunderstood and sent it to my home address in London. SO says postie gave her the packet on Wednesday.
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THank you for replies.
THe pan is values at $40, put I would probably need to pay $45 for it.
Postage is $6.
For Customs , point of view, $46 or £30 is total value.
I can buy the item for £46 in the UK includes postage. Even if I had to pay VAT (£6) and handling charge of £8 then total would be £30 + £14 = £44, i'd rather pay the extra £2 and buy it honestly in the UK. However, if I could by it for £30 inc. postage then that's a saving of £16.
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 As far as I know, even if you don't pay C&E duty, you still get 'handling charge' by PO. They say this is for 'converting' payment from $ to £, checking with HMR&C and UKBA that no tax is due. If it is the PO pay it and you pay PO all money due, before package is released for delivery.
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>As far as I know, even if you don't pay C&E duty, you still get 'handling charge' by PO.
Not correct.... the fee is for clearing the item through C&E. My dualist had no payment due and it was delivered as a normal parcel.
Alastair.... its worth bearing in mind the/any warranty and also what happens if the item doesn't turn up OR its the wrong thing/size etc. These days its rarely worth importing standard items once everything is factored in.
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When did you get item Bedders? Now the UKBA has been give responsibilty for imports, not just HMC&E, you may find that they are even worse than C&E. I bought an item from US two months ago, it was under the 'limit' in total, price wise. I still had to pay Handling Charge to PO, because BA charge for imports from outside EU. if it's over a certain weight, size. I had to pay £28 for an item that cost $24 because of size of package.
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I was still in the US but my partner got the item on wednesday.... the door bell rang and the postman handed her a parcel from the US which was correctly documented.
I don't like mail order in general and I go to the US enough not to need to have stuff posted so I'm not really up on the C&E UKBA thing although it does sound a bit strange.
If your item is genuinely worth $24 plus P&P and you got charged £28 (whats the breakdown?) then I'd suggest that you contact C&E? and appeal the charge.
From my experience C&E go on the declared value unless they think something dodgy is going on i.e. packet marked "gift T-Shirt $15" yet weights 1.5kgs. I've also heard that they open/scan random packets as a control to check for illegal imports i.e. drugs, guns, porn etc and those items (the legal ones) always get charged as appropriate.
I've always been of the opinion that unless the item isn't available in the UK or that there is a significant price saving then shopping abroad even within the EU is more hassle than its worth even with the ease of doing it over the web.
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 AND you might just be helping a Brit keep his/her job!
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| Edited: 11/12/11 08:49 |
errrr, what do you mean?
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I've always been of the opinion that unless the item isn't available in the UK or that there is a significant price saving then shopping abroad even within the EU is more hassle than its worth even with the ease of doing it over the web. You seem to be stating a preference for buying in the UK (albeit with conditions) and I assume a Brit would be involved in that transaction somewhere along the line. Or have I misunderstood?
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No, sorry the misunderstanding was mine, I thought you were referring to something else
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| Edited: 11/12/11 10:29 |
