My mom sent a Christmas package to a lifelong friend in Scotland. She paid over $30 here to ship it, scarves, screwdriver sets, little things with an accumulated value of around $100. When it got their, they make Lettie pay $45 to pick it up! What’s up with that?
So, all told, between Scotland customs and US shipping, there was $75 paid outside the $100 value. Nuts!
Can anyone give me some ideas what’s going on here?
It might be pertinent to include that they’ve been sending Christmas gifts back and forth for over 65 years, this is the first time this has happened.
Edit: Lettie said the package claimed the charges were due to Notice 143, but she can’t figure out what that is and of course we have no idea
I have been digging and it appears to be related to how the parcels within the primary were listed. This was a package of gifts for 4 or 5 separate people. Had it been written up that way, each gift would have fallen under the 45 pound gift limit and as such been exempt. I think my mom just declared a $100 value as though it were one gift. Kaching! They pounced on it!
If your mom sent it by an express carrier (ups, DHL, FedEx…) then the tax is automatically charged. I mean you get 100% chance to be charged if the value reach 25$ (maybe less maybe more I can’t remember).
The “gift” checkbox have his purpose but it can’t work every time.
For usps, it happen time to time, it’s just bad luck.
Description of value on our beloved Chinese package are always vague and if too expensive, the value is most of the time falsified.
The import duty to the UK starts on postal packages at £15 (Currently just under $25). Which includes postage in the value. So it is taxable on $130, not $100.
Then depending on whether it gets handled by Royal Fail or ParcelFarce there will be a "Handling Charge". Parcel Farce's is rathe bigger than the Royal Fail's. This is often considerably more than the import taxes and VAT (20%)
Even sender marked item as gift, some customs persons don’t care it and we have to pay tax or handling + VAT even tax free.
some charges (handling, vat etc…) may applicable once parcel is stopped by customs.
this is what happen to me as well.
I had to pay around 20$ for some electronic stuffs from chaina worth 45$
But I know a guy who got his Ipad without any customs inspection.
A packet, 1oz, of Glow In The Dark powder from GlowInc in Florida attracted the attention of the kind genitalmen from customs, a declared value of $23 cost me a further £11, $18 - £3 VAT and duty and £8 “handling fee” i.e. taping the box up again.
Greedy Grabbing - you fill in the rest.
While we’re on postage. Does the U.S. postal system allow packets rather than boxes because $13 worth of phosphor-bronze washers, maybe 30 or so gets packed in a 4”x4”x3” box with a minimum $12 fee. It would be nice to get very small items like this in a small padded envelope sent at letter rate, the lot didn’t weigh 1/2oz. It really puts me off ordering anything from the U.S.A.
Even though a padded envelope (less than 1/4” thick) meets the requirements for a “large letter” ($2 for overseas), most post offices want to charge you $6 to send it as a parcel. You can quote the regs chapter and verse until you are blue in the face and they won’t budge.
BTW, I have NEVER been charged a customs fee on anything. Including some $10000+ items. Once somebody sent something Fedex and I had to pay their “brokerage” fee of around $20. Also once somebody sent something DHL. They wanted copies of my tax returns, passport, birth certificate, etc. I told them to shove it where the sun don’t shine and return the package to the sender. He resent it parcelforce and it arrived two days later. Didn’t even have to sign for it.
Postage is only included in the Vat calculations and not in determining if the parcel is over the £15 limit.
Looking at the exchange rates they use, for $23 I can only assume you got it between March - June when the rate was a bit poor and it would have been a few pence over £15
Yes it was in May sometime. Funny thing is it’s not the duty I mind paying, it’s the £8 for the Royal Mail to literally put two pieces of tape over where the box was opened.
