I've just purchased a new front track stand from Italy our friendly ebay man,he says there's no change with the rules if under the £135.Let's hope he's right.
Did you actually buy it via eBay. I ask because when I click buy, any purchase from abroad has Vat added on at the checkout by the system automatically. He's wrong by the way. Below 135 quid he as the seller is supposed to pay HMRC direct. Above 135 he shouldn't charge you VAT and it gets added at the border together with duty (not for all goods but mostly 2.5%) and your friendly courier service is going to charge you a fee on top. To be fair, most purchases from China should be the same but I only ever paid tax three times I think. Might change now as they did away with the rule that purchases below 15 quid are Vat exempt and most Chinese parcels are labeled sample or gift with next to no value. I can't see our customs to have upped their capacity to check and process a extra 60 billion worth of goods from the EU annually and all the below 15 Quid stuff from the rest of the world. They may never be able to.
Yes Piricambilo,It was advertised for £115 but came in at the checkout at £113 but it's a very nice Ducati stand so i'lll let you know the outcome over the coming week,the service from him has been very fast in the past,but that might have changed with the paper morons.
Tried to scan back through this thread for info,got a bit convoluted into Slavery and American history! Someone had a nice watch for sale a while back ,A Steinhart ,you can order and pay the manufacturer directly in Germany They add vat and 15 € shipping . Is that still up to date,I thought Id read they dont charge vatbut I get charged VAT by UK customs,am I going to get import charges on top,or any other charges?
If the seller abroad has registered for UK vat they can charge the VAT on their invoice and it should not be added when it enters the UK. If they are not UK vat registered they cannot do this and you will be charged VAT before delivery.
Customs duty is nil below goods value below £135, 2.5% for goods from £135 to £630. Above that it gets very complex.
Not sure if this has been posted elsewhere https://www.motolegends.com/reviews/Buying-motorcycle-gear-in-Europe
Just bought 1200 quids of wine from a vineyard in Bougogne. I paid French taxes as anyone would buying from their premises. No further taxes added. Shipping is by courier. Let's see what happens.
Let’s all hope it doesn’t go the same as buying from the USA. I often buy bike related items from the USA and you always get really hit hard by the charges. The UK system allows any charges to include the postal cost and USA postal charges are crazy. So if you buy say a gas tank for say $300 dollars and it costs $250 dollars to post to the UK, the UK government now say the value of the gas tank is $550 and charge you the tax and import duty on the value being $550 dollars which is a totally unfair system. Oh and of course the Royal Mail add there handling fees on top so sometimes what started as a purchase of say $300 dollars as ended up costing me maybe as much as $700 or more to finally get the item
I have only imported from the USA once, parts to build an expensive fishing rod. Ended up being around 25% on top of purchase price.
I used to buy lots of very cheap racey bits on eBay US, have them shipped to my Manhattan office, then stuff them in my cabin baggage for the trip home. There were some funny looks at security as I pulled out a sub-frame, carbon seat, carbon tank and cam belt covers. But back in UK arrivals no one was interested.
For work over the last two weeks I've been trying to arrange transport and import documentation for a large crate containing two scrap Aircraft First class seats to come from a customer in the EU who is a major aircraft manufacturer to our factory in the UK. Before Xmas it was easy, I've done similar lots of times, but now the combined resource of 2 massive multinational manufacturing groups has taken two weeks to get it sorted to the satisfaction of UK and French customs, and we've paid a rather large sum of taxation for scrap, free of charge, goods. Nasher.
The item arrived yesterday from Italy ( stuck in customs for two odd days ) with no import duties or other top ups from the couriers,so a happy camper & sweat over.
