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Import/VAT charges dodged

Bobbdobalina

Bobbdobalina

Site Supporter
Joined
Apr 6, 2021
Messages
923
Location
UK
This is the first time that this has happened to me and wondered if it was a fairly common occurrence.

I been ordered a fair few bits from various overseas pinball retailers and sometimes have to pay handling fees, VAT etc which on larger orders can hit quite hard as I tend to forget about them when ordering.

Today I received a package from PSP in Australia and normally they declare everything and I get charged.
This time they declared everything, customs picked up on it, worked out the amount owed ( £70 VAT,£12 handling)
Put a nice sticker on the box stating that it can’t be delivered until the charges have be paid and then promptly left it outside my door while I was at work!

Am I missing something or have I just got lucky?
 
Last edited:
if it was delivered by royal mail or parcelforce, you are probs ok. Some of the others dhl, fedex, will deliver and then send you a bill (or charge your cc if previously paid charges to them)
 
Under £135 then the seller is supposed to collect VAT and pay to UK customs directly.

Over that it's down to the courier to sort out.

Sounds like you got lucky if it was parcelforce. Have had FedEx send invoice after delivery before.
 
Fantazia2 said:
Sounds like you got lucky if it was parcelforce. Have had FedEx send invoice after delivery before.
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Do they still do this?? I know they used to circa 10 years ago....

Edit :

From here : https://www.fedex.com/en-gb/billing/duty-tax.html#pay

Non-FedEx account holders​

If the receiver does not have a FedEx account, duties and taxes may need to be paid before goods are released for delivery. If so, shipments may be held at the destination station until payment arrangements are made.
The contract of carriage with FedEx states that the shipper is ultimately liable for any duties and taxes assessed on the shipment. If the receiver refuses the package, or the third-party FedEx account holder refuses to pay for duties and taxes, the original shipper will be billed for them.
 
Pick Holder said:
I have noticed that certain countries actually collect the uk vat
Even got this off aliexpress for something £70 or so.
Check your original invoice!
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No vat taken at source, I’ve checked the invoice. Total invoice for parts was Aus $624 so well over £300.

What may be a factor is that the customs charge sticker was stuck on the bottom of the box on the opposite side to the address label.
So may have been a simple case of the parcelforce employee not see it and throwing it in the wrong pile 🤷‍♂️
 
RM I would have said that they deffo charge the Vat plus their "clearance charges" and want it BEFORE delivery
DHL are the same - Want paying prior to releasing for delivery.
 
I have ordered a lot of things from America in the last few months and it seems if it goes via usps postal route nearly always gets stuck here and you have to pay parcel force before they send it, however couriers is lucky dip, 50/50 however a lot of companies that charge more for courier services especially the premium delivery time has the charges built in to the high price they charge, no real reason why sometimes you pay and sometimes not
 
i’ve already posted about this - for commercial overseas purchase of £135 inc shipping or under there is no charge

www.gov.uk

Tax and customs for goods sent from abroad

VAT, duty and customs declarations for goods received by post or courier - paying, collecting your goods, getting a refund and documents.
www.gov.uk www.gov.uk

This is annoying as I want the TNA side rail
lights but they exceed £135
 
Bobbdobalina said:
This is the first time that this has happened to me and wondered if it was a fairly common occurrence.

I been ordered a fair few bits from various overseas pinball retailers and sometimes have to pay handling fees, VAT etc which on larger orders can hit quite hard as I tend to forget about them when ordering.

Today I received a package from PSP in Australia and normally they declare everything and I get charged.
This time they declared everything, customs picked up on it, worked out the amount owed ( £70 VAT,£12 handling)
Put a nice sticker on the box stating that it can’t be delivered until the charges have be paid and then promptly left it outside my door while I was at work!

Am I missing something or have I just got lucky?
Click to expand...

You haven’t escaped anything, parcel force will just post you an invoice for the fees stated on the box

Love or hate it, Part of buying goods, should always factor in vat charges in your country

I have to remind Europe buyers all the time vat charges are their responsibility based on what their government sets!
 
Paul said:
Do they still do this?? I know they used to circa 10 years ago....

Edit :

From here : https://www.fedex.com/en-gb/billing/duty-tax.html#pay

Non-FedEx account holders​

If the receiver does not have a FedEx account, duties and taxes may need to be paid before goods are released for delivery. If so, shipments may be held at the destination station until payment arrangements are made.
The contract of carriage with FedEx states that the shipper is ultimately liable for any duties and taxes assessed on the shipment. If the receiver refuses the package, or the third-party FedEx account holder refuses to pay for duties and taxes, the original shipper will be billed for them.
Click to expand...
I tried that argument with FedEx when I ordered a couple of the Metallica Pinball shirts.

I.e. they delivered the shirts then sent an invoice. I thought I'd got away with duty and VAT and argues that I wasn't aware that I'd have to pay duty when I ordered. They went to the website found the part that said customer was liable for duty amd sent me the link. I was amazed at how much effort they put in to it for about £20. So much so that I just paid it rather than try and argue further.
 
Whether we agree with it or not , it is the system in place that if we are honest we all know so we shouldn't be surprised that there is vat to pay on things we buy internationally.

The bigger and more annoying issue is the 'service fee' charged by the courier to handle your vat payment on your behalf. I've always been, no thanks i'll pay all that myself thanks and you can deduct the extra £12 , but that's not how this game works!! They all make an extra £12 - £15 on each import and there is **** all you can do about it.. and the service charge is vatable aswell, ****ers!!!

Time for a brew and a count to ten already... haha
 
I just had to pay £25 quid to release a parcel from OZ for delivery. When it arrived the price of the contents was $180 AUD = £95. :mad:

Do the make it easy to get your money back? Do they f***! Wait 45 mins for the phone to be answered at the number on the sticker with the charge, to be told call HMRC, HMRC wait time to answer a call another 50 mins, look online, have to fill out a form, is it the right form, who the **** knows?!! Not holding my breath! But in good news my BKSOR now has the awesome sword mod delivering left orbit shots back to the left flipper via a sword ala LoTR which makes it a way more fun game and not so right flipper heavy so well worth the ball ache of the charges!
 
myPinballs said:
Whether we agree with it or not , it is the system in place that if we are honest we all know so we shouldn't be surprised that there is vat to pay on things we buy internationally.

The bigger and more annoying issue is the 'service fee' charged by the courier to handle your vat payment on your behalf. I've always been, no thanks i'll pay all that myself thanks and you can deduct the extra £12 , but that's not how this game works!! They all make an extra £12 - £15 on each import and there is **** all you can do about it.. and the service charge is vatable aswell, ****ers!!!

Time for a brew and a count to ten already... haha
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The charge is for admin plus the use of the company's deferment account. Goods are only released by customs if the taxes have been paid so courier companies use VAT deferment account to clear the goods. The deferment account has to have twice the maximum VAT commitment sitting in it as cash and that costs money. Years ago we had a £150k VAT we had to pay to get the goods released by customs as this was way above the courier's deferment account limit.

David
 
I know people have managed to argue in the past about paying the "admin" fee and have ended up being just able to pay the import charges as they had no agreement with the courier to pay them a fee to do this.

Last time I had something from Parcelforce I paid before delivery as I was checking the tracking number and it prompted for me to pay, but I also got a letter in the post the next day asking me to pay before they would deliver, which I had already done.
 
Parcel force tend not to send out invoices these days unless you are a VAT registered company.

Not sure if the OP is in this bracket. This may explain how @myPinballs gets invoiced.......

At one time they used to send invoices but nobody used to pay them !
 
Pick Holder said:
Parcel force tend not to send out invoices these days unless you are a VAT registered company.

Not sure if the OP is in this bracket. This may explain how @myPinballs gets invoiced.......

At one time they used to send invoices but nobody used to pay them !
Click to expand...
No not vat registered, so you’ve given me hope 🤞
 
IME (quite a lot of packages arriving from worldwide over the last 3 months), and remembering i am Joe Bloggs, the proceedure from RM goes as follows :

Item comes in from outside the UK.
Package goes from usually Heathrow to the assessment centre in Coventry.
They assess and qork out charges.
Parcel makes it from there to the local depot. On the website it usually says something about charges owing, but not an amount. At the same time RM put something in the post to you stating the ref and also the amount owing.
This usually takes over 5 days to arrive, so i just shortcut this by calling them with the package reference and they usually give me the charge reference. You can then go onto the RM payment site and pay the outstanding amount.
Once the amount is cleared, the local depot are informed - they put a big "paid" sticker on the box, and it gets delivered on the date you select when you pay the charge.

Could well be different elsewhere, tho i'm not sure why it would be, however reasons like VAT registerations may explain a difference
 
Loads of stuff from Parcelforce.
Every time they drop a card in letter box. I will then go to depot, pay then collect.
 
Yep the examples above have been exactly how it’s always played out before with me also.
However this time they have missed out the ‘payment collection before releasing parcel’ part and left is on my doorstep first!
 
Bobbdobalina said:
Yep the examples above have been exactly how it’s always played out before with me also.
However this time they have missed out the ‘payment collection before releasing parcel’ part and left is on my doorstep first!
Click to expand...
As i said before, you are getting a letter in the post telling you to pay the charges online...

Invoice, lol, i just mean a letter..
 
everybody's country of government is just gouging us all
they set up free trade between country's for whom ?
sounds like it is not us .

tax for this and then for that
and we have a processing fee and the tax on that as well
you guys pay VAT and we pay GST
in Australia
 
myPinballs said:
As i said before, you are getting a letter in the post telling you to pay the charges online...

Invoice, lol, i just mean a letter..
Click to expand...
Oh, more than likely you will get a letter. That would have been posted a few days ago. Also stating that the item will be released once the charges are paid. You have the item. Job done :D
 
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