It's something to be aware of, is all. I'm guessing on top of the £13 odd squid UPS charge for handling customs charges etc there was the initial postage fee plus for some items an additional import tariff (usually 2.5%) then vat on the whole lot. so £242+ squid ex vat around £201 – £13 = £189 – 2.5% = around £184 suggesting about £24 for post and packing??

If buying stuff below £135 cost then you'ld avoid the customs duty although vat will still apply.. and if sent ordinary mail you might or might not get lucky and avoid interception and vat depending on sellers declarations.

The chinese are particularly good at making packets look valueless and lying about their contents.Indeed if they charged vat and a handling fee for every incoming parcel they'ld probably balance up our trade deficits and destroy the chinese economy.

That surely has been one of the beneifts of being in the single…….I'll stop there

For anywhere other that the EU ( at present) there is import duty to pay on imports ,the amount varies . I rang up HMRC and they sent me a very helpful document .

For example the import duty on second hand motorcycle parts is 1/2 % not an ureasonable amount surely.

Lets look at a worked example

some M/C part £150 , carriage £50 total = £200 import duty on total £1.00

Plus VAT on £201 so whats that ,

£40.20 total at present .

Then some one ( the courier ) has to get in touch with you and collect the money plus all the additional work of submitting the parcel , recollecting it from customs, collecting the money off you paying it to HMRC and making sure all the paperwork is up to date , so how much do you charge for that,  is  £25.00 unreasonable?

Total now £65.20

All for £1.00 import duty

Edited By stevetee on 29/12/2016 15:53:17

The best advice is to buy a lot of stuff then the small admin fee becomes less of an issue as when taken as a percentage of the total cost it is far less

I don't think the royal mails £8 fee has a limit so it may seem a lot on a £25 item but not such an issue on a £500 or £1000 one.

Edited By JasonB on 29/12/2016 16:36:17

A U.K. seller is required to abide by HMRC regulations, pay duty and VAT at point of import, and similarly charge you – the U.K. buyer VAT at point of sale.

The overseas sellers – especially those selling through Amazon and Ebay commit all kinds of fraud, to please you – the U.K. buyer – especially by undervaluing goods, as well as using state owned companies (specifically with reference to China) to ship goods at subsided as well as black market rates.

This is acceptable to many, at the cost of U.K. companies loosing jobs, and HMRC loosing revenue.

To make things a little more fare, it would be easy for the politicians and HMRC 'to make' overseas sellers 'collect' the duty and VAT on behalf of HMRC… at point of purchase on such platforms. This way, there would be no question of at least the 'undervalue' fraud which currently takes place.

So far, such suggestions made to HMRC have fallen on deaf ears. I can only presume the reason being that key politicians are on the advisory consultant payroll of Amazon, Ebay, and such like.

Ketan at ARC.

AJohnw,

Amazon, Ebay, etc., have the ability to collect revenue on behalf of HMRC.

To suggest that a legitimate U.K. company/business's margin requirements makes it less competitive, or to suggest that that they are a reason for 'rip-off Britian' would be wrong. There are a whole bunch of rules and regulations which most have to abide by…. which most of the foreign sellers on Amazon and Ebay dont.

Regarding Germany, sorry I have to disagree with you. Holding stock in Germany – in bond, or in Southampton – in bond, is connected with dirty money in most cases. Lets see how many of these even comply to CE, let alone any other regs, relating to minimum wage, welfare and so on. Such sellers are only interested in laundering their money. HMRC know this. A clear line has been drawn for them leading to such operations. Some have been shut down. New ones have opened in their place. 'Giant Shark' or a similar name being a case in kind…. got shut down, MTM bought it… couldnt run it as they figured out that the RC mob.. potential buyers were only interested in buying from dirty businesses without paying any duty and VAT. Result being closure of legitimate model shops, and even their own Giant Shark business shutting down… becasue they tried to run it legitimately… unlike the previous owner.

Long and short, if HMRC really wanted to do anything about it, they could have… a long time ago. Instead, to them this sems to be a victimless crime!. As I said before, I can only presume the reason for their failure to do anything is that key politicians are on the advisory consultant payroll of Amazon, Ebay, and such like…. Legalised bribe.

Ketan at ARC.

I don't think the china warehouses in the eu are that simple Ketan. Some do it as would be expected. However it wouldn't surprise me if in some cases there was a turnover aspect – not enough to require vat. That is unlikely to be the case with outfits like HobbyKing for instance. Globally they used to ask what number people would like put on the customs documents.

Some of the items I mentioned came off a seller that offers a lot more ex china. Just a few things are in the EU. There are others like that too. Anyway our ex PM did mention that something must be done about these EU warehouses.

One thing for sure what ever they do wont really solve the problems that are current in the UK especially and some of the rest of West but usually to a lesser degree. Treasure Island Britain is likely be here for a long long time if not for ever. Economic theory does seem to be changing a little though so who knows.

I have bought things of GiantCod aka later GiantShark. i don't think that they had anything to do with model shop problems. Two things did. It was a cheap hobby that could be started by kids. Then came expensive ready to fly etc. Those really are in the big boys toys area really down to cost in many cases. The other problem is flying them. A lot more complicated than it used to be. For instance at the age of about 10, probably even earlier I used to build model, get on my push bike, go about 6 or 7 miles and fly them at Sutton Park. Doing that slowly but surely that became a lot more complicated but many years later. A crowd of us used to go all around the same age. So complicated that the flying field is now covered in bushes. It's still possible to go fly things in places but it wouldn't surprise me if some of the well known ones even from 5 years ago aren't used any more.

Last time I flew a model aeroplane not all that long ago really it was a built up balsa model. I took my repair kit with me. Super glue, few bits of balsa and some tissue.

GiantCod appeared to work under the vat limit and buy at low prices when items were available like that. Once gone something else would crop up. A business like that doesn't scale well. My son runs his own vat free business in other areas. At least he is aware of that. I suspect the Shark people thought otherwise. Sometime companies get changed to get rid of them too. There used to be a shop in Bakewell that really did undercut. Bought out and told not to do it any more. Same happened to the original Comet only a little differently.

John

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Edited By Ajohnw on 29/12/2016 18:35:59

Ebay are a bit annoyed that some eu sellers aren't really but when the contact details show china some things do arrive in the time it would take to ship from the eu.

I had one were they were pre selling before the items even got here.

John

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Just out of interest the EU stock holder for the chinese seller is Amazon. UK by the look of it. The seller has a number of listings on ebay most of which state in China. A few don't and state some where in the EU. Germany I think in this case. I have had several things that turn out to be delivered by Amazon. Also some from sellers that list as this latest one does and they do come from where stated.

So there are some chinese sellers that list correctly and have contact detail that are in China.

Only problem is that I spent so much time looking at tig consumables I have double ordered. I started off looking for kits with gas lenses but wasn't happy with what they contained – bits I suspect I wont need. Lots of them. I seem to have ordered some with gas lenses. Then I found a kit without gas lenses that contained what I suspect I will actually need plus little else and ordered that having forgotten the other.

While sorting this I was also looking around for gas fittings and then some method of adding a water separator to a compressor that comes without one. Suspect that didn't help. The connection on the back of the welder is bugging me. Suppose I will have to settle for something dangling on the end of a bit of pipe to make change overs from tig to cutting quick and easy. I don't like bits dangling about on a bit of pipe. Ok when connected up but irritating when the welder isn't in use. I have to pack things away when they aren't being used.

John

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I had a similar 'problem' just before xmas. Ordered from China, told it was coming from China, warned there would be a delay in an email apparently from China, and then it arrived next day in a standard Royal Mail parcel postmarked Basingstoke.

Dave

I used to know some one who imported items from an ebay seller in the US and then sold them on ebay. The seller gave him a bit of discount. He reckoned that postage was included. This was over 10 years ago.

Also some one who sold fishing tackle small scale. Same problem. Tax made it more difficult to compete with the big boys. In this case the collection fee was significant as well.

Personally I think it should be opened right up as it's the big boys that lobby for changes. They don't want people selling things cheaper than they do. If we are to become a nation of people who sell hamburgers to each other and hair dressers etc in a situation where rather a lot of the things we buy are imports I feel opening it up to give smaller outfits a chance would benefit all of us eventually. Say a nice round number like £1000 and tax for every one over that. I also suspect HMRC would get more if they arranged to collect tax electronically without a collection fee as well. The other thing about tax on £1000 plus is that it is worth collecting – collecting tax on £16 worth is pretty pointless and costly really.

Then Curries would go just in time and only ever order £999.99 worth at any one time. I'm sure that could be handled but with some complications. Maybe £1000 is too much but at the other end of the scale £15 is stupid. The £18 limit I suspect had been around for a very long time and was never ever increased.

That leaves items delivered that are marked as being worthless. Our postman says they get a lot of them. I suspect most if not all are pretty low value items. Personally if items are on the pricey side I always pay tax. I may ask for a reduced price on the paper work to cover the collection fee. Some things I don't buy as the collection fee would make it too expensive. In that case there is usually some one some where who sells at an acceptable price. Some charge a lot more.

John

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Edited By Ajohnw on 30/12/2016 13:48:51

As I mentioned in a previous post I rang up and asked HMRC about import duty and they were most helpful. Why not ring them up and ask if there is any way of avoiding the collection fee, possibly by registering with HMRC as an importer and having a number. I'm sure Curries don't have lorries turning up at their warehouse with the driver going ' Ere mate , lorry load of tellies ere for you mate, oh and wheres the boss ' cos theres a £10, 000 bill from customs before you can offload 'em.' So there may be a way of formalising things. I know I bought some thing from the USA and I know I paid the customs in advance and paid a little bit extra so as not to have it submitted to HMRC upon arrival in the UK. It seemed to me well worth the effort.