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[EDIT: its worth pointing out that some of the assumptions I made in the first post are incorrect, but probably worth a read of the thread if this affects you ]

Whereas previously it used to happen very rarely, every single time recently I've received an item from abroad bought off eBay or similar, Ive been charged 20%VAT and a flat rate £8 handling fee (by Royal Mail). This wouldnt be so bad if the £8 fee wasnt often more than the model was worth. It really takes the biscuit when some of these models weren't bought off a commercial site, but traded on a forum - except the other person had thoughtfully included a list of what was in there and what I'd paid him - the packet had been opened and I'd been charged VAT and the fat £8 fee again.

I'm thinking with the privatisation of Royal Mail, this 'handling fee' is a nice little earner for its new private owners, so we're going to be seeing this become a regular, if not permanent thing.

Is there any way we can avoid this? For instance does marking an item as a 'gift' rather than a 'commercial product or sample' on the customs forms going to do anything? I dont even mind paying my obligated taxes, what I really resent is having to pay a newly privatised company to open my mail, rifle through it, and charge me on HM Customs behalf, with their own charges on top - effectively ransoming our parcels at £8 a time.

Also I think we need to know how things work the other side of the pond - I often ship things there I sell on eBay, but I'd hate to think Im sending our cousins in the states things at around £10 postage, only for them to have to pay the same again in their equivalent of customs fees.
Yanks, what's your experience of this and what tips should we in the UK know about when sending to you?

Ive started using DHL for large lots, but is it even worth sending individual (i.e necromunda) figures anymore? Whats your experiences?

This isn't really a thread that belongs in the Swap Shop so I have moved it to General Discussions.

As for the customs charges, yes, they suck balls. It has happened to me several times recently. I don;t know if it is because customs are tightening up and inspecting more stuff or whether because I have been 'caught' in the past they now flag up anything from overseas to my address, who knows. Anyway, it is enough to have put me off ordering from overseas. No, there is no way to avoid the handling charge if your package gets stopped. Yes, it is very unfair that RM charge this blanket fee. AFAIK, the only way around it is for the originator to label the parcel with a declaration sticker saying the duty has been paid or that there is no duty to pay (ie a gift). Not may companies will do this however, as it is effectively tax fraud.

Ah sorry I'd thought swapshop was relevant as a lot of cross-atlantic trading does take place.


It isnt actually customs though, its Royal Mail collecting it on their behalf so they can net their £8 handling fee for themselves. I am convinced its because of the privatisation, and nothing to do with being flagged or the like.

I'd much rather there was a nice simple way to pay the VAT to customs up front, and so not have to pay a further £8 to a private company. If there is no way to pay these charges directly to customs, then what you have is an unavoidable monopoly where Royal Mail - sorry - "profitmaking privatised mail" - is getting £8 off us for being a middleman we're forced to use.

Paying taxes is one thing, being forced to pay a private company money to be able pay my taxes is quite another.

Im really concerned to know if USPS are pulling the same sh**, and how I can avoid it for people I post to over there.

 Mecha wrote:
Ah sorry I'd thought swapshop was relevant as a lot of cross-atlantic trading does take place.


It isnt actually customs though, its Royal Mail collecting it on their behalf so they can net their £8 handling fee for themselves. I am convinced its because of the privatisation, and nothing to do with being flagged or the like.

I'd much rather there was a nice simple way to pay the VAT to customs up front, and so not have to pay a further £8 to a private company. If there is no way to pay these charges directly to customs, then what you have is an unavoidable monopoly where Royal Mail - sorry - "profitmaking privatised mail" - is getting £8 off us for being a middleman we're forced to use.

Paying taxes is one thing, being forced to pay a private company money to be able pay my taxes is quite another.

Im really concerned to know if USPS are pulling the same sh**, and how I can avoid it for people I post to over there.

Erm....RM have always charged the handling fee. Nothing to do with RMs much needed privatization.

There are two ways to avoid the fees - One is fraud the other is to not order/sell.

 Mecha wrote:
Is there any way we can avoid this? For instance does marking an item as a 'gift' rather than a 'commercial product or sample' on the customs forms going to do anything?

Sure - it will mean you're committing tax fraud. Don't do this, and don't ask other people to do this.

I dont even mind paying my obligated taxes, what I really resent is having to pay a newly privatised company to open my mail, rifle through it, and charge me on HM Customs behalf, with their own charges on top - effectively ransoming our parcels at £8 a time.

The most you can do is vote for a less gakky government, or talk to your senator-equivalent about making waves.

There is always the very complex workaround - find a friend who commutes to and from the overseas country in question. They can bring back up to £390 of goods, tax free.

The cheapest flights to the US from the UK are about £300, so if you order a lot of stuff from the states, it would realistically work out cheaper to fly out and pick it up yourself from a PO box in whatever city suits you so long as you stay under the £390 allowance.

 legoburner wrote:
There is always the very complex workaround - find a friend who commutes to and from the overseas country in question. They can bring back up to £390 of goods, tax free.

The cheapest flights to the US from the UK are about £300, so if you order a lot of stuff from the states, it would realistically work out cheaper to fly out and pick it up yourself from a PO box in whatever city suits you so long as you stay under the £390 allowance.

But you're not paying a 100% tax rate. The 300 pounds has to be less than the tax you'd pay, not just less than the total.

The tax is 20%, the 'handling fee' is fixed at £8, so a (for example) £5 model becomes a £14 model, excluding the higher international P&P costs, giving a saving of £9 per model, or 180%, so it would not take a huge number of models for the savings to make it a worthwhile trip (34 distinctly mailed £5 models).

The handling fee isn't new, and it's nothing to do with privatisation, I've been getting hit by this charge every now and again for the last 20 years.

Ask the sender to mark it as a gift, many will do so happily, although technically it is fraud so I wouldn't ever blame someone if they weren't comfortable to do so. Gifts aren't subject to taxation, at least at the likely declared values we're talking, I don't think there's a threshold.

If they do, then RM would then have to open the parcel and find an invoice/delivery note in your own name and address in order to have any chance of levelling charges at you (the chances of which are statistically insignificant)

While those that state the charges were in place before privatisation are correct, it isn't impossible that the % of parcels being picked up for inspection has increased since.

Frankly though, I'd just avoid buying from the states if possible, I haven't bought anything for ages for the exact same reason as you're having issues with, heck, I've even bought stuff from Oz with cheaper postage and no tax issues, than I could have got it from the States.

 Mecha wrote:

I'm thinking with the privatisation of Royal Mail, this 'handling fee' is a nice little earner for its new private owners, so we're going to be seeing this become a regular, if not permanent thing.

Is there any way we can avoid this? For instance does marking an item as a 'gift' rather than a 'commercial product or sample' on the customs forms going to do anything?

They don't charge tax if the value is under £15. Keep orders less than that and you are fine. Marking things as a gift or anything else is just asking for them to open, and is also tax fraud.

 Mecha wrote:

I dont even mind paying my obligated taxes, what I really resent is having to pay a newly privatised company to open my mail, rifle through it, and charge me on HM Customs behalf, with their own charges on top - effectively ransoming our parcels at £8 a time.

They have always done this, and they don't open many, but if the documentation is not clear they will check. They have to make the costs back somehow. By all accounts they make very little, if anything, on the import tax charges. The charges are nothing new. The only way to avoid the charges (DHL also charge a handling fee) is to start your own custom brokers, which is not exactly a practical option.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 azreal13 wrote:
Ask the sender to mark it as a gift, many will do so happily, although technically it is fraud so I wouldn't ever blame someone if they weren't comfortable to do so. Gifts aren't subject to taxation, at least at the likely declared values we're talking, I don't think there's a threshold.

Gifts just have a higher threshold for VAT, £36 rather than £15, and also mislabeling risks being fined or losing the goods.

this why i always fill out the Customs forms as a gift, with a value of $20, when i ship from the US...
it sucks to buy a mini, and then have to pay so much to collect it...
i feel your pain...

cheers
jah

You can list the item as a gift but you have little recourse should it be a bad trade. You certainly shouldn't do it with eBay purchases. Informal trades and things between those acquainted is safer.

I thought this was a bit odd, as I looked into the costs when importing chainmail rings. You don't pay VAT unless the value of the item is £15+. The sneaky, tight thing is, this includes the value of the item, the p&p and any insurance. Actual import duty kicks in around the £135 mark, if I remember correctly.

Its going to get worse. Security in logistics is going to get a lot of scrutiny moving forwards, therefore prices will rise and governments want a piece of cross border low value item trade.

 marv335 wrote:
The handling fee isn't new, and it's nothing to do with privatisation, I've been getting hit by this charge every now and again for the last 20 years.

Thought I'd post to state this is correct, as it doesn't looks like anyone else had remarked on this post--the handling fee has been going on for years. (I know my country flag says I am posting from the US now, but I am British.)

Also worth knowing that most couriers (eg FedEx/DHL etc) charge higher handling fees

so if you have a choice between something coming in via USPS (and thus Royal Mail) and a courier choose USPS (or similar national postal service)

Other than that try to make orders close to but not over £135 (where import duty kicks in) so the handling fee is less as a proportion of your total bill

 Wolfstan wrote:
I thought this was a bit odd, as I looked into the costs when importing chainmail rings. You don't pay VAT unless the value of the item is £15+. The sneaky, tight thing is, this includes the value of the item, the p&p and any insurance. Actual import duty kicks in around the £135 mark, if I remember correctly.

AHA - I see, the item in question was a model that was £6, but with post ontop it was obviously just over (if not right on the button) £15
The other item was an army deal from Onslaught minis, which I would have expected to pay VAT on, but not the further charges ontop.

Is it still correct to assume there is no way to pay your customs fees at the point of posting then? I cant seem to find anything on either the Royal Mail or USPS sites.
I think people are missing the point, I dont want to not pay customs, I just dont see why there isnt an option to just pay the customs direct to HMRC or foreign equivalent before posting, rather than having to pay customs via Royal Mail etc on reciept.

Is it just the case that they only have a system in place like that for large exporters, and the rest of us have to do this sort of 'wheel of fortune' style gamble each time? :S

I've had stuff shipped from the UK labelled as "Scale models" (different tax rates apply to different things and scale models are sales-tax exempt usually).

But we don't charge import duties here unless the value is equal to or more than $1000. Then different goods have different slugs on them. Electronics gets around 30-35% for example.

UPS and others also charge a fee for the customs; basically the postal service of your choice pays the customs charge for you and then you reimburse them; paying around £8 (I think UPS is the same) as a fee for the service.

I seem to recall that there is some way to stop this, however it means that the customs holds your package in limbo and then has to send you a letter to respond to to pay. I suspect they probably have their own set of fees to cover this.

It is a pain and it also stops me importing low value goods (second hand books for me mostly - I just hate the idea of paying more in shipping, tax and fees than several books!)

I have only been ordering using USPS priority service and it goes straight through customs with no problems but its expensive and I only do it with expensive orders.
I too have issues getting lower value stuff in without them slapping an £8-16 charge on them, even when its second hand or nowhere near the £15.

 chromedog wrote:
I've had stuff shipped from the UK labelled as "Scale models" (different tax rates apply to different things and scale models are sales-tax exempt usually).

But we don't charge import duties here unless the value is equal to or more than $1000. Then different goods have different slugs on them. Electronics gets around 30-35% for example.

It would be a good idea to see what the different categories are for each country... I never know what to classify it as when I send it? "wargames figures" seems like they wouldnt have a clue what it means - I normally just slap on "collectable figures" or "scale models" :S

Here are the official rules:

http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageTravel_ShowContent&id=HMCE_CL_000014&propertyType=document#P20_1804

Needless to say, it is almost impossible to have anything sent to the UK from outside the EU without it costing over £15 inclusive of the postage cost, so in theory almost all parcels are going to be charged the customs fees.

If possible, get the parcel sent to a friend or relative in the other country, so that he can repack it and send it as a gift. This increases the limit for Customs to £35, which still is not very much.

Beware of parcels sent from Switzerland. A lot of people forget it is not in the EU.

Up until recently I'd only received a tax bill + Royal Mail handling on one of my Victoria Miniatures orders. That order was over £100 though. Other orders of anywhere between £20 and £60 had slipped through the net. My two most recent orders have both incurred extra costs. IDoes that mean I was lucky in the past or are the rules being more closely followed now? Who knows?

My plan will be just to make larger single orders less often. Paying the tax doesn't irk me as much as the Royal Mail handling fee. I'd rather pay one big fee plus one handling charge than incur multiples.

 Mecha wrote:

 chromedog wrote:
I've had stuff shipped from the UK labelled as "Scale models" (different tax rates apply to different things and scale models are sales-tax exempt usually).

But we don't charge import duties here unless the value is equal to or more than $1000. Then different goods have different slugs on them. Electronics gets around 30-35% for example.

It would be a good idea to see what the different categories are for each country... I never know what to classify it as when I send it? "wargames figures" seems like they wouldnt have a clue what it means - I normally just slap on "collectable figures" or "scale models" :S

Welcome to the crazy world of Customs Commodity Codes. https://www.gov.uk/trade-tariff

I had a recent meeting with Customs over some import schemes I run at my company, and he was telling me of a case he was involved with on importing some DC Comics action figures. These had to be classified as 2 different categories of product for Superman toys and Batman toys, each with a different rate of import duty.

A no-Prize if you know why without reading the spoiler:



You'd only be liable for import duty if the value of the imports was over £135 (iirc), so it wouldn't affect most people. If you did get caught up in it, I would suggest Commodity Code 9504908000 with a duty rate of 0% applies link

This all applies to the UK/ EU only - other parts of the world have their own crazy rules.

It's an interesting one this. I actually once reported the royal mail for chargeing £8 just to do their job to the competition commision as it's blatant profiteering and since we don't have a choice in who handles our international mail it's not like we can go to a cheaper competitor. (Note the £8 is just the royal mail fee - nothing to do with the Tax which you should fully expect to pay)

The comission actually said they agreed with me, but that they couldn't do anything without more complaints - so if you really do believe that the Royal mail are ripping you off by chargeing £8 just to deliver a letter and collect some cash (they are by the way) then report them and see if we can't get them banned from doing this. Your also more likely to get a posative responce now since it is a private company, it's probably much harder to penalise one of your own.

You can get all the information you need here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/competition-and-markets-authority

(Note - new change of name)

I was once charge £10.20 to collect an international parcel - £2.20 tax and £8 to the Royal Mail

Stranger83 wrote:
It's an interesting one this. I actually once reported the royal mail for chargeing £8 just to do their job to the competition commision as it's blatant profiteering and since we don't have a choice in who handles our international mail it's not like we can go to a cheaper competitor. (Not the £8 is just the royal mail fee - nothing to do with the Tax which you should fully accept to pay)

The comission actually said they agreed with me, but that they couldn't do anything without more complaints - so if you really do believe that the Royal mail are ripping you off by chargeing £8 just to deliver a letter and collect some cash (they are by the way) then report them and see if we can't get them banned from doing this.

You can get all the information you need here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/competition-and-markets-authority

(Note - new change of name)

I was once charge £9.20 to collect an international parcel - £1.20 tax and £8 to the Royal Mail

See thats the kicker isnt it - I wouldnt have minded if it was still a nationalised company - I mean in a very abstract way, even if they do charge £8 on top it all goes towards maintaining the infrastructure of the country I live in, but now that £8 is going towards the investment groups that conveniently bought an industry at a 1/2(?) of its value, because our government is either stupid or corrupt. Which like you say, is a monopoly as there seems to be no other option. :(

 Mecha wrote:

Stranger83 wrote:
It's an interesting one this. I actually once reported the royal mail for chargeing £8 just to do their job to the competition commision as it's blatant profiteering and since we don't have a choice in who handles our international mail it's not like we can go to a cheaper competitor. (Not the £8 is just the royal mail fee - nothing to do with the Tax which you should fully accept to pay)

The comission actually said they agreed with me, but that they couldn't do anything without more complaints - so if you really do believe that the Royal mail are ripping you off by chargeing £8 just to deliver a letter and collect some cash (they are by the way) then report them and see if we can't get them banned from doing this.

You can get all the information you need here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/competition-and-markets-authority

(Note - new change of name)

I was once charge £9.20 to collect an international parcel - £1.20 tax and £8 to the Royal Mail

See thats the kicker isnt it - I wouldnt have minded if it was still a nationalised company - I mean in a very abstract way, even if they do charge £8 on top it all goes towards maintaining the infrastructure of the country I live in, but now that £8 is going towards the investment groups that conveniently bought an industry at a 5th of its value, because our government is either stupid or corrupt. Which like you say, is a monopoly as there seems to be no other option. :(

Yep - to put in in persepctive - the Royal mail charges £2.80 to send a small parcel within the UK - or even £5.65 for a medium (anything but a large miniature purchase will fit into the small parcel section however). What this means is - even presuming for a moment that the Royal Mail doesn't get anything the postal service of the country that send you the item (I don't know enough about international postage regulation to know if they do or not - so lets just say they don't) they are still chargeing you £5.20 just to collect the tax

UK minimum wage is £6.31, I somehow find it hard to believe that it takes the Royal mail 49 minutes per delivery to collect the tax.

The other choice is to buy from a company that handles the import charges from the seller side. Then they can pay the VAT and not get charged the fee.

Surely there is an argument that this is impacting unfairly on international sales? It's restricting your choices as a shopper due to how the Royal Mail slap on a £8 charge. It potentially stops you buying direct.