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"Shipping Taxes"

Just received something from Play-Asia, but not too sure about the taxes and whether I have to pay or not. It was marked as "Sample". Is tax added onto those?

Just received something from Play-Asia, but not too sure about the taxes and whether I have to pay or not. It was marked as "Sample". Is tax added onto those?

I don't know. All I can say is that I ordered and received about £60 of DVD's from Hong Kong last year, marked as sample, and with a value of US$ 60 , and I didn't pay anything.

someone will be breaking your door down very soon ;)

That's what I wanted to hear.

Belldandy wrote:
> I don't know. All I can say is that I ordered and received about
> £60 of DVD's from Hong Kong last year, marked as sample, and
> with a value of US$ 60 , and I didn't pay anything.

£60 isn't equal to $60 though

I know, it was an eBay seller and the anime was REALLY cheap, his emails read like he bearly knew english. But the DVDs arrived, they were genuine *collapses* and it cost me nothing extra. I ended up with about $250 retail value of region 1 anime for £60.

All a bit of a lottery. Even if it is marked "sample" or "gift" etc, you can still be taxed as there is a limit on those too. Most couriers will ask for the cash at the door, or at least give you an invoice. Fed Ex are weird though; I've got invoices from them months after receiving the parcel and thinking I'd got away with it. Annoying thing is with couriers you often end up paying them a significant handling charge for the privilege of getting to pay the tax and duties.

The authorities can open the parcel and examine the contents. If it looks like a retail transaction they'll tax you regardless of what the label says. Had to fax proof of payment to them for a package from Hong Kong I’d bought through eBay. Was marked gift, and had an artificially low value noted on he front, but they said they wouldn’t release the parcel for delivery until they saw how much I'd paid and taxed appropriately. But they don't look at every package, so you do get away with it sometimes.

Belldandy wrote:
> I ended up with about $250 retail value of region 1 anime for £60.

yeah you stumbled on a real gold mine.







sorry.

That's what I'm unclear about; what limit is there on marked parcels before they start charging?

And there must be some sort of pricing policy with couriers for these charges; I've heard stories of people receiving the same item, but getting taxed at different rates.

mikelar wrote:
> yeah you stumbled on a real gold mine.

Heh, I left out the next bit. I then sold them all on ebay UK and made about four times my investment...

Anyway back to the topic.

Officially merchandise can be to the value of £18 before it is taxed. Samples and Gifts can be to the value of £32 before they are taxed. If your items are delivered by courier than you will not have to pay them straight away but will get an invoice a while later which you can't just ignore. If it just goes through the Royal Mail...well there is a good chance it will not get noticed but if they do notice then be prepared to pay around an extra 25% of the items value. However books/comics and a few other things are exempt anyway.