rock n ride Posted November 2, 2013 Share Posted November 2, 2013 Hi all ,I have been looking at parts and accessories on eBay for my midnight star and its all much cheaper coming from the states but some mention the possibility of import tax,does any one know what that's about ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lallasro Posted November 3, 2013 Share Posted November 3, 2013 you have to pay the VAT, duty tax for stuffs over 150 pounds, the shipping cost AND a f transport tax to UK post (if you are in UK). I don`t know how is working this shit about transport tax for royal mail. sometime I pay, sometime I don`t. when I buy my seat, I don`t pay anything else, just the VAT, duty tax and shiping. when I buy the lowering kit, I pay all those (but not the duty because of low value of product) and I pay 17 pounds "handling tax" to royal mail. also O don`t know how they calculate this handling tax because for this I pay 17 pounds but for a 3d convertor I pay over 50 pounds handling tax to royal mail. this link will help you calculate the tax you have to pay for what you want buy. you can use 10 times this calculator for free. http://www.dutycalculator.com/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steph g Posted November 5, 2013 Share Posted November 5, 2013 Nice one. I was wondering the same thing. Saw some nice hard panniers on ebay. Would be £180 cheaper if I got them from the US. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noise Posted November 5, 2013 Share Posted November 5, 2013 Yer the biggest thing is VAT but if you speak to the seller and see if they can sell it as a gift it some times gets through with out getting taxed. i had to pay £120 VAT when i got my crank and con rods through and another £70 VAT for my seat. But the link Lassy posted is a great way to judge how much you will pay Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator DirtyDT Posted November 6, 2013 Moderator Share Posted November 6, 2013 I buy a lot of stuff from the states. Even if you pay the duty it can still work out cheaper. Sometimes the duty gets missed and that can be a bonus. Most of the TS NOS parts came from either online shops or fleabay in the states. I do object to Royal Mail charging a huge chunk for collecting any duty but that may just be me. I haven't had anything from the USA that I had to contemplate sending back. Be careful of canada though. The stuff can take months to arrive, the us I believe, doesn't offer a surface mail service to the uk any more so it costs more but can arrive the same week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator drewpy Posted November 7, 2013 Moderator Share Posted November 7, 2013 you have to understand re: the royal mail. If there are duties to be paid then legally for this country, the post office pays the full amount on your behalf as they have to deliver your parcel. The charge of £8 covers the costs involved in this (could be £100's) and there will be a few thousand of these every day so that's a lot of money royal mail pay out daily. If you decide you don't want the parcel and ignore the demand, then royal mail have to send it back. thought that was reasonable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator DirtyDT Posted November 8, 2013 Moderator Share Posted November 8, 2013 I think you will find that is not strictly true. The Royal Mail collect the due custom charges the same as business collect the VAT on a purchase. They do not pay for your parcel. I spent many years working for Royal Mail including about 5 working for Royal Mail international. I have worked with the customs guys from London, Dover, Birmingham and Glasgow. I have worked on international cross charging for the Universal Postal Union. My point was that I thought £8 was excessive. No different to, back in the day, when we all went into the post offices to buy our road tax. The counter staff would take your cash and the post office counters had at least a 30 day account to transfer that money on to the government. The interest on all of the road tax money held for those 30 days accounted for multi millions of pounds in interest for Royal Mail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator drewpy Posted November 8, 2013 Moderator Share Posted November 8, 2013 they do collect, but they pay out first whether they will or won't get the money back! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator DirtyDT Posted November 9, 2013 Moderator Share Posted November 9, 2013 Sorry Drewps, that isn't right. No business would pay out a tax without collecting it first nor pay it when it may not technically be due. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator drewpy Posted November 9, 2013 Moderator Share Posted November 9, 2013 Sorry Drewps, that isn't right. No business would pay out a tax without collecting it first nor pay it when it may not technically be due. I hear you oh wise one and they say the following; The £8.00 fee currently charged by RMG reflects the actual cost of clearing items through customs. This includes the staff, facilities and handling cost of presenting the item to customs. I was only told this when I phoned them when my daughter was charged £340 for a £30 item (i kid you not) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator DirtyDT Posted November 9, 2013 Moderator Share Posted November 9, 2013 I hear you oh wise one and they say the following; The £8.00 fee currently charged by RMG reflects the actual cost of clearing items through customs. This includes the staff, facilities and handling cost of presenting the item to customs. I was only told this when I phoned them when my daughter was charged £340 for a £30 item (i kid you not) The £8 may (or may not) reflect the actual cost but does it reflect the "should have cost". In my time working for RM, the actual cost was often twice the should have cost - They used to measure this by the means of Effective Performance. There used to be a lot of scams including people undervaluing the contents, sending stuff as "papers" which had no duty or items for the blind (braille newspapers) with stuff stacked in the middle. Another con is paying duty for postage. The sender would have already paid duty if the sending country taxed the postage. The problem was that lots of people selling - on fleabay for example - would advertise an item worth £10 for 1p with £9.99 postage. Regardless of what value is put on the douane label, HMCE can still open the item and guess the price the item would have cost and tax the item at their guessed rate. All that aside, and me dragging the thread back on topic, I still think that it is work buying from abroad in the majority of cases. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rock n ride Posted November 11, 2013 Author Share Posted November 11, 2013 Cheers for the info guys ,I bit the bullet and ordered the v&h slip on last week via eBay it took import tax and vat in to account I believe. every thing including postage came to $300 which is a lot cheaper than £300 from the UK.assuming it arrives with no problems.i will keep you posted Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator DirtyDT Posted November 11, 2013 Moderator Share Posted November 11, 2013 Lets us know how you get on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rock n ride Posted November 16, 2013 Author Share Posted November 16, 2013 It all arrived okay all though there was a note inside saying it had been opened and resealed by customs.no extra charges so im happy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator DirtyDT Posted November 17, 2013 Moderator Share Posted November 17, 2013 Great news. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rock n ride Posted November 21, 2013 Author Share Posted November 21, 2013 Sounds bloody fantastic as well Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russbiker Posted December 6, 2013 Share Posted December 6, 2013 I ordered a gel seat pad from the states about 4 years ago and it was something like £60 for the item, postage got added on then the full invoiced value brought it over the threshold to pay import duty + a parcel force fee and it ended up being something stupid like £120. I was reading on another bike forum and lots of guys are saying amount has now been significantly lowered on which they can charge you import tax on, meaning if you buy something for £20 they might be able to get you for it... You need to do some proper research before ordering or you could really get stung Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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