Buying from USA

I'm just interested in the customs and VAT issues. As I understand it you have to pay 17.5% VAT and roughly 4% customs duty (I know the duty varies depending on what you're buying but it's usually about 4%). Now the questions:

1). Are the VAT and import duty cumulative or separate (ie - do you pay duty on the VAT, or VAT on the duty, or is each one calculated separately on the cost of the goods)?

2). Do you still have to pay VAT on second hand stuff, or just new stuff?

3). Do you have to pay any kind of VAT/duty etc. on any insurance involved in the delivery?

Mate of mine in Portugal wants to buy some cables from Audiogon for about $1000 . Sending them to Portugal is a non-starter because we get all kinds of bureaucratic trumped up charges you have to pay on top of the standard VAT and duty (and VAT here is 19% aswell) so it's a no-no. I said I could let them be delivered to me in the UK and I'll bring them over for him on my next trip but wanted to know a bit more about what costs might be involved.

He'll be using UPS (for security and tracking ability) and also getting the package insured so he can't get the seller to undervalue on the customs declaration.

Any info gratefully received

Michael.

 

Mike, ok importing from the US can be pain free if you have a good partner the other end, We get stuff 2 or 3 times a week, and sent out too.
Now you are liable for the VAT on the total purchase price (whether new or used) and the shipping costs as well plus a handling fee from ups (robbing bastards)
so, say $1k+$80 shipping and ins thats 1080$+vat thats £693+vat £121.15+3%+£20.51 import tax +UPS charge about £40-50 so that'll be £895 give or take £20 not quite so cheap after all, may antonio could get the Cardas cheaper .WM

 

Thanks for the info Tone. It's not António this time, and I'm not sure what the cables in question are...

Michael.

 

I'm hopefully taking delievery of my shunyatas one day this week,and was wondering the same as they are second hand would you pay tax on them????? and how do customs know there worth and how do they know they are specialist leads and just not any old 2€ kettle lead.?So i'll wait in anticipation,I'll wiggle my way out of it somehow,but i'll let you know the outcome as i'm in spain.


Regarding delievery ups was far too exspensive,so i got them sent by registerd (traceable) post.It was 30 odd € for the 2 cables.

I'll post the outcome regarding thier delievery.

 

i had my PCB for my phono amp delivered from the states, was $99 = $2.40 Postage and the VAT was around £15 wich included a PO surcharge of £4
robbing gits

 

The sender will have filled out a signed customs declaration stating the value of the goods.

Things can work out cheap from the USA. I bought a lens for my father, which came to something like $320 + shipping, and after taxes and duties was about £310. UK price with the hood (which I bought from US as well) is about £420. I'm sure with the usual £1 to $1 conversion on many bits of hifi gear (as with camera gear) there are serious savings to be made. Going back to the camera example, there's some horrific price fixing going on. A Canon EF 300 F2.8L IS is $3800 in the US, whilst it comes in at £4249.90 here. Even after tax and duties, someone is still seriously on the make there... Hence why I've bought several items in the US (one pair of binoculars, paid $195 (£120 at the time), UK list £240, One lens for $607 (£433 at the time), best UK price £569, UK list £850 and a couple of other things here or there).

</rant>

 

adam - customs know what they're worth because of the customs declaration Now of course, if you have a friendly seller they can make a customs declaration a little "underweight" shall we say but if you want to insure the goods it won't look too clever if you have a $50 value on the customs declaration and $1000 worth of insurance

Similarly, if you're not buying in a personal capacity, or the seller isn't a private individual it's more than likely that a receipt will accompany the goods and customs are allowed to open the packaging to look for recepits etc if they're suspicious.

If it's a personal seller and there will be no receipt and you don't require insurance then getting him to put "Kettle leads, $25" on the declaration would work UPS though tend to do things more by the book

I hope that the customs are not as zealous in Spain as they are in Portugal. Ever since Portugal joined the EU and they lost all the customs revenue from EU deliveries they will hammer you for all they can. Nothing will escape them, even a single CD from Amazon. I once ordered a $56 isolation transformer (Jensen) for my cable TV and ended up paying roughly 60 Euros in customs charges :bub:

Michael.

 

you could also ask them to write 'Gift' on the parcel as gifts are tax exempt

 

Sorry Andy, that don't wash either now, tried that as well getting wiser mate

 

Damn, they just dont want us to save!

 

Gifts are only tax free up to £32 (no idea how they arrived at that number).

 

That's a bit unfair.

How can they justify taxing a gift? ffs...

They should concentrate on cutting all the costly beaurocracy in tha system and then they could actually possibly CUT taxes, just for a f'ing change...:SLEEP:

 

I seem to recall having a conversation with a american cliente of mine,as he had posted to his house a carton of vitamin tablets from the states,I asked him if it was worth it,and im sure he said yes as there was no customs on them.


I have a friend in the states and i've sent to her some cds,she didn't need to pay import tax,got sent straight to her house.



So this guy,for example,has my 2 cables,uses normal US postage,sticks them in a packet, posts them to my house in spain,as he is private seller there is no reciept obviously just the goods.

It arrives at customs? or postoffice? they open it,laugh it's just kettle leads,I mean do they really know what it is? it's value?How do they deter if its cheap or exspensive,if it was new with a reciept ok fair enough,but second hand through a private individual?

Soon all will be revieled.

 

But, if you were buying new it would be different as you would claim tax free from there end ,surely? you cant pay vat twice?

 

Taxes...fair? That'll be the day

It's the same with inheritance tax (I don't want to get into a big debate about it) but if you "give" your children valuable stuff (eg your house) and then pop your clogs the next year they still have to pay inheritance tax on it. There's a sliding scale for seven years I think covering things that have been gifted in that period. AFAIK if you give your children your house 7 or more years before you die then that's OK (but I'm sure there are other catches).

Michael.

 

The figure is £36 before you get lumbered however the customs man aint daft, you send a Wadia 861 by usps and put Gift on it (trust me I tried this ) he spank your botty
small items are not so bad, but they do get rather 'Shirty' if you take the piss. WM

 

My last Audiogon cable came from Singapore in the post, No VAT no duty, no handling charge, - nuthin'

A result ...it would appear !

 

with all the costs involved with ups ,customs this that and everything else added on I,m considering flyin over there and bringing back as hand luggage ,anybody tried this?

 

Totally agreed, how come the carriers e.g. UPS or the British Post Office can get away with charging a handling charge on imported items.

I think HM Customs in the UK must be clamping down a lot more heavily these days than they use to... Recently I ordered 29 GBP worth of CDs from Amazon in the US, and got charged VAT, import tax and post office handling charges - a total of 11 GBP. That, IMNHO is petty, when you consider how low the value of the items are, and that the threshold for import/duty charges is 20 GBP in the UK - anything below that and you don't get charged. In complete contrast, a few years ago I imported over 70 GBP worth of CDs (again from the US), and didn't get charged a penny in duty.

Siltech cables are another case of where it's cheaper to buy in the States than over here in Europe, even though AFAIK, Siltech are a Europen (Dutch ?) company. Not that I want to buy, just sell at the mo and found out that the cables I'm trying to sell are worth less than I potentially thought for the US market. Didn't know this before, but Siltech also have a manufacturing plant over in the US, so the yanks don't have to import ready made articles from Europe and still get it cheaper than we do.

FYI, here's a break down of duty charges on my recently imported 75 US$ "Gift ":

.................. Import VAT = 11.91
......................... Duties = 2.22
.. UPS Handling Charge = 10.00
......................... TOTAL = 24.13

Have two more packages coming from over the pond this coming week, so will let you all know how much I get stung. One is agreed as being a gift between myself and the private seller, and the other is well... could be quite painful!

 

I've not yet been stopped and searched by Customs coming off of an in-bound flight into this country yet. Didn't bring back anything of significant value from the States on my last trip over there, but have come back from Hong Kong quite a few times in the past with a few small electrical items in the old hand lauggage. It's all very much the luck of the draw IMO and to a certain extent where your flight originated from. I imagine if you come from a flight which came from say South America, Bahamas, Thailand etc they'd be a much higher chance of being randomly picked out by a welcoming committe of Customs officers - that's my theory anyway.