If you've purchased something from overseas via the internet and had to pay a Customs charge on it, if you thought the amount claimed from you was too much, can you challenge it?
No, it's not happened to me but was just wondering....
Good luck. Expect to be on the telephone on hold for many hours and be passed to many different departments before you lose the will to live and kill yourself.
I overpaid to HMRC and have spent almost 2 days being passed about, on hold, going through figures and i am still in the same position.
If you've purchased something from overseas via the internet and had to pay a Customs charge on it, if you thought the amount claimed from you was too much, can you challenge it?
No, it's not happened to me but was just wondering....
It is not so much the Tax you pay but the handling fees that the Royal Mail charge for dealing with the collection of tax
From what I remember I had to pay £6 in tax but £28 in handling fees, I challenged why it was so much but got the usual blurb of "we have had to deal with this item and pay the taxes on behalf of you so you can pay us even more for dealing with it other wise we will send the item back to the country it came from and send you a bill"
It was a complete rip off.
If it is under £35 (I think) you should not have to pay tax or any fees.
If the item is gift and stated as such then you also do not have to pay taxes on the item
It is not so much the Tax you pay but the handling fees that the Royal Mail charge for dealing with the collection of tax
From what I remember I had to pay £6 in tax but £28 in handling fees, I challenged why it was so much but got the usual blurb of "we have had to deal with this item and pay the taxes on behalf of you so you can pay us even more for dealing with it other wise we will send the item back to the country it came from and send you a bill"
It was a complete rip off.
If it is under £35 (I think) you should not have to pay tax or any fees.
If the item is gift and stated as such then you also do not have to pay taxes on the item
You have to pay the tax but the Royal Mail fees are not legal. You have not agreed to it and by effectively placing a lien against the goods they are acting against the law (since it's the Queen's mail whilst in their care, and they are causing undue hindrance to its delivery) and have to give you the item if you pay the tax and not the handling fee.
You have to pay the tax but the Royal Mail fees are not legal. You have not agreed to it and by effectively placing a lien against the goods they are acting against the law (since it's the Queen's mail whilst in their care, and they are causing undue hindrance to its delivery) and have to give you the item if you pay the tax and not the handling fee.
Oh I tried every which way to not pay the fee, I wasn't getting my package until I had paid.
I wish I had known it was not legal though, I could have stayed another two hours arguing the toss.... and still not getting anywhere. LOL
If it is under £35 (I think) you should not have to pay tax or any fees.
If the item is gift and stated as such then you also do not have to pay taxes on the item
It's currently £18 (soon to be £15!) and having it declared as a "gift" only increases this threshold to £36 (currently), it does not negate the liability for duty and/or VAT.
Don't the seller have to pay any charges themselves or are normally based in places where they don't have to pay such charges/taxes?
"The buyer assumes responsibility for any additional import taxes or fees".
Very few online retailers could manage to deal with the myriad of different taxation codes across even just the EU - every country has it's own VAT rate, often different for different items, and there are hundreds/thousands of different rates for import duty depending on precisely what an item is .
Even Amazon which is a huge company doesn't offer it by default if you order from a different country to where you live, they offer it as an option if you choose courier shipping for some items.
It's complicated even further by the fact that in some countries you have different states/provinces each with their own taxes (or even cities), so normally if something is being sold to a customer who is in another country the seller (Amazon.com etc) can have it tax free at point of sale, and it's up to the customer to sort out the import taxes.
Comments
Good luck. Expect to be on the telephone on hold for many hours and be passed to many different departments before you lose the will to live and kill yourself.
I overpaid to HMRC and have spent almost 2 days being passed about, on hold, going through figures and i am still in the same position.
It is not so much the Tax you pay but the handling fees that the Royal Mail charge for dealing with the collection of tax
From what I remember I had to pay £6 in tax but £28 in handling fees, I challenged why it was so much but got the usual blurb of "we have had to deal with this item and pay the taxes on behalf of you so you can pay us even more for dealing with it other wise we will send the item back to the country it came from and send you a bill"
It was a complete rip off.
If it is under £35 (I think) you should not have to pay tax or any fees.
If the item is gift and stated as such then you also do not have to pay taxes on the item
Oh I tried every which way to not pay the fee, I wasn't getting my package until I had paid.
I wish I had known it was not legal though, I could have stayed another two hours arguing the toss.... and still not getting anywhere. LOL
Thanks for the advice though.
It's currently £18 (soon to be £15!) and having it declared as a "gift" only increases this threshold to £36 (currently), it does not negate the liability for duty and/or VAT.
"The buyer assumes responsibility for any additional import taxes or fees".
Very few online retailers could manage to deal with the myriad of different taxation codes across even just the EU - every country has it's own VAT rate, often different for different items, and there are hundreds/thousands of different rates for import duty depending on precisely what an item is .
Even Amazon which is a huge company doesn't offer it by default if you order from a different country to where you live, they offer it as an option if you choose courier shipping for some items.
It's complicated even further by the fact that in some countries you have different states/provinces each with their own taxes (or even cities), so normally if something is being sold to a customer who is in another country the seller (Amazon.com etc) can have it tax free at point of sale, and it's up to the customer to sort out the import taxes.
You just ask them to invoice you, they make a phone call and they release the parcel. I've not had an invoice sent yet:D
I have done this