Nikko2

I am buying something off ebay for the 1st time, It turns out that it will be posted from the US.

Value is £150 and it is an mp3 player.

With it being second hand will I still get stung by HMCE? If so how much?

Nikko2

Accordiing to HMCE, MP3 players are 2% duty plus 17.5% VAT.

So that makes it £180 now

paulr

Best thing is to email the seller and ask them to put in a receipt for say,£15.Who's to say thats not what you paid.

DJ73

get it marked as a "gift" so you don't pay anything

andrewdelvard

I've had plenty of 'gifted' items sent to me without even asking. The treasury must lose big £ on this.

mad_dr

If it comes from outside the EU (which this does), whether it's a gift or not is irrelevant. Duty and VAT are due on all goods valued over ~£30 so marking it as a gift is unlikely to have any effect.

As has been said before - the best thing to do is to mark the value down.

What I do with camera lenses from the US or Japan, is to get the shipper to remove it from the original box and pack it well in bubble wrap/boxes and to send the original box onto me separately. Then mark the package containing the lens as "Broken Camera Lens. Sold for Spares. Value £30". Problem solved.

Might sound like a hassle but on a £700 lens you can save a fortune and you can apply this method (especially the "Broken" bit), to anything...

paulr

Good idea.

ethanrob

iTrader: (3)

i work with the royal mail,most of the time i am seeing parcels/packets coming through marked up t shirt $15/jeans $20 etc
question is,who sends jeans and t-shirts in boxe's roughly around the size of car stereo/mobile phone boxe's

paulr

Ethanrob,what percentage of parcels get opened and do you have any tips for NOT getting them inspected.

ethanrob

iTrader: (3)

Matey!
i couldnt tell you a percentage ,as all the checking and inspecting is done before the parcels reach us.

from the parcels ourselves and parcel force are delivering,i would say around 50-60 percent are coming through ebay,and out of those probably half from abroad(not exact figures,just my own observations. as said the parcels are mostly marked as clothing t-shirts/jeans/shorts etc or marked as gifts

i have purchased from asia,america and canada before now on ebay and only been done for duty once,luckily it just exceeded the limit and only cost me a few quid