Buying abroad....import into the uk.....?

[Betsy]

My advice Toots.. put a call out here for a friendly European proxy to buy the goods on your behalf and ship them to the UK using a reliable shipping service with door to door tracking.. declared the item as a gift with a value of €10... you will pay a few more Euros for domestic shipping in Germany but you will legally avoid border charges.. a friend of mine in Germany sent me a crank + chainrings last year and the cost was €16.70 with DHL .. this is what forums are for!

I've been shipping goods (personal not business) internationally since 2006 (80% imports) and touch wood, i've never had anything go missing but i never, ever use budget couriers..

If your item is sent via FedEx, they are large enough to have their own customs facility so your package will pass through customs within a few hours.. smaller couriers who're not large enough to charter their own flights, buy space in the cargo hold of commercial airlines which reduces the cost of international shipping and offsets the cost of your foreign holiday but these parcels have to pass through the UK customs facility (usually Coventry) so they take a few days.. sometimes a week.

You can't avoid this, it's not like the mail room from Elf.. it's more like the self serve dropbox in Decathlon where you can clumsily drop an armful of goods into a box and the price magically pops up without the need to scan.. everything passes through this system, it scans the barcode.. if there are no charges, it will be picked up by your delivery service and delivered within 48hrs.. if the scan detects a customs charge, a label is autoprinted and slapped on the package.. Parcelforce will pay this on your behalf and charge you £12 admin for doing so on the top of your border charges..

Your package will be held until the charge is paid. Whether it be FedEx, Parcelforce, UPS of what'evs.. they don't give a shit what is in your package, or the declared value, they are only the courier, they only get paid for delivering your parcel.

 

[pwebb]

@Betsy Yes. This is what i fear will happen.....


Wow.....oh yes, i forgot we still have an empire that can dictate to everybody else how they should trade in their own country.... The gov website doesn't even countenance the situation where a german seller decides not to follow their rules

...we just need to send a gunboat into the nearest harbour and shell the shoreline till they capitulate, like we did in days of yore

 

[Betsy]

Alternatively.. you could send the bike parts to the German city of Essen, where they can be delivered by hand via channel crossing.. popped in the postbox in Dover entirely bypassing UK customs system.

 

[ferrus]

It seems that FedEx will sometimes pay all taxes themselves and then claim them back after delivery. I recently bought a watch from Japan and was pleasantly surprised to receive it without having been charged anything. But a week later a bill for £95 arrived, with persistent demands thereafter!

 

[Betsy]

Yep, that’s how FedEx rolls but I don’t think there is any up-charge a’la Parcelforce.. or at least there wasn’t the last time they snagged me for charges on a Marmot sleeping bag from the US

 

[bikeworkshop]

Deliberately avoiding VAT might be a serious offence. You shouldn't make a habit of it, for sure. All your international transactions are recorded.

Everything i get from abroad comes with a tax bill.
Petty much even the xmas card from my cousin.


Taxes also pay for stuff like hospitals, so it's ok to pay it

 

[Betsy]

I don’t mind paying VAT once.. but if I order something from JP, I’ve already paid Japanese consumption tax at 8% then I’ve paid for shipping with EMS, which is a Japanese company, the service they provide ends at the UK border but I still have to pay VAT on the entire cost of that service, which is a little unfair.. I have no objection to paying VAT on the £6 postage charges appertaining to the final leg facilitated by Parcelforce..

Like most things in life, I judge it by my own finely tuned moral compass.. I’m not reselling anything so I don’t stand to profit and after decades of international transactions, the UK gov are certainly in profit from my outlandish consumerism.. It’s not like I’m James Dyson.. Garry Barlow et al.. I’m just trying to avoid paying additional VAT where VAT has previously been paid.

 

[bikeworkshop]

I don’t mind paying VAT once.. but if I order something from JP, I’ve already paid Japanese consumption tax at 8% then I’ve paid for shipping with EMS, which is a Japanese company, the service they provide ends at the UK border but I still have to pay VAT on the entire cost of that service, which is a little unfair.. I have no objection to paying VAT on the £6 postage charges appertaining to the final leg facilitated by Parcelforce..

Like most things in life, I judge it by my own finely tuned moral compass.. I’m not reselling anything so I don’t stand to profit and after decades of international transactions, the UK gov are certainly in profit from my outlandish consumerism.. It’s not like I’m James Dyson.. Garry Barlow et al.. I’m just trying to avoid paying additional VAT where VAT has previously been paid.

.... your honour.

 

[bikeworkshop]

The moral and the legal matters are sadly different.
DeptWkPensions is forcing me to collect a debt for them through our payroll from one of my employees - and it has nothing to do with me.

if I don't do this work for them, for nothing, and to their timetable, I get a £1000 fine.

I even have to calculate the amount due too.

Hmm immoral, but legal.

 

[d8mok]

Deliberately avoiding VAT might be a serious offence. You shouldn't make a habit of it, for sure. All your international transactions are recorded.

Everything i get from abroad comes with a tax bill.
Petty much even the xmas card from my cousin.


Taxes also pay for stuff like hospitals, so it's ok to pay it

Tax avoidance isn't illegal. Tax Evasion is.

Not to get into Tax as a subject. But most people are pretty sick of taxes upon taxes so will (within the law) look to pay as little as possible.