Hi all,

Thinking of buying something for the zed from ebay in the states... Have seen a lot of talk in the past about import tax.

Item is £85 postage is £25 what's the deal guys & gals??

 

Jamez

Think it's about 20% of its worth iirc?

 

The courier will deliver then you will get a bill in the post, or if it ends up at Royal Mail you have to go to the sorting office

 

You may get lucky I've never had to pay anything :)

Vat + Tax + Handling Fee's are typically around 25% of the total goods value with postage.

 

There are ways to avoid or reduce this, but do take into account that any Courier insurance is based on the declared value. Imports do get damaged and go missing.

20% VAT and 3% import duty.

 

Plenty of only calculators that will work it for you.

 

If you get the person filling out the paperwork at the other end to send it as "gift", and it's a small item, it may get through customs without being stopped. It's just a chance you take.

If you're offered a choice of express shipping or regular it's best opting for regular....with Royal Mail/Parcel Force they annoyingly charge a higher processing/admin fee for express items (£12 compared to £8 last time time I paid) and in my experience regular shipping is only a couple of days extra wait. Also once an item gets stopped in customs for fee processing it can sometimes be snaggled up there for a few days regardless of if you'e paid for express shipping or not.

 

The customs fee you pay will be the total of both the item fee and shipping fee, so you'd be paying VAT on £110 plus whatever the couriers handling fee is (differs slightly between them).

 

Also, if you're buying something over the £170 mark (cant remember the exact amount) you pay a customs duty as well as the VAT and handling fee. I think the amount of customs duty depends on what the item is as some categories of item have a lower or higher amount of duty payable.

 

Hope that helps....and if I've given some incorrect info then please do correct....my number one tip for buying Zed parts in the States is get yourself a cheap flight out there and take an empty suitcase ;)

 

S.

Thanks for the advice guys ;-)

also depends on where you buy from. CZP always cheaper than Z1 as CZP never put the full value of the consignment which equals lower duty/taxes