UK Import Tax

[Dynasty]

Just adding to the Rip-Off Britain whinge.

So, I bought a laptop on Ebay, my biggest purchase so far, and the total (including USPS express international shipping) came to £765 paid from PayPal. This laptop is as-near-as-makes-no-difference not available in the UK anymore (well, I cant find it from a credible source), and is about £300 cheaper than an equivalent-spec'd gaming machine here in the UK (£1000+). Sweet, good deal.

N.B. Laptop is still in transit, and these figures are based on people's passed experiences and my understandings from the HMR import website.

Aaaaaand here comes the new hole about to inevitably be ripped into me.

Because it's an import, it has to go through HMR customs and get inspected (which is good because that cracks down in smuggling etc), but then they just rip you off.

Laptops are not subjected to duty tax, so thats free.

But then they have to add (if you're unlucky) 20% VAT on the value of the goods. ANd not just the value of the goods. They have to tax the ***king POSTAGE COST AS WELL.

So when the laptop is around £680 and the shipping is around £85 once converted from $'s, they slap VAT on the total of the two, not the laptop value.

So thats around £150 in ***king VAT!? And the joke doesnt stop there.

Because it is an import, USPS will hand it over to either the Royal Mail or, most likely, the retards at Parcel Force (inbred swine who couldn't deliver a package to the right address if you paid them), who then charge a HANDLING FEE JUST FOR PICKING IT UP, of around £8, and then rock up to your door and say you owe the VAT at 20% plus the handling fee, PLUS a delivery charge. AND APPARENTLY THEY ONLY ACCEPT CASH OR CHEQUE's AT THE DOOR AND CAN THEN REFUSE TO LET YOU HAVE THE PACKAGE, UNTIL YOU PICK IT UP FROM THEM WHERE THEY STILL CHARGE A DELIVERY FEE (W...T...F!?)

So;

Original price before import:

£765(ish) after PayPal conversion.

After Import:

VAT 20% - £150(ish) as customs actually has a better conversion rate at the moment than PayPal.
Handling fee - £8
Delivery fee - usually around £30 (according to my research of people's previous experiences).

New Total: roughly £950.

Do any other countries pay such a huge amount of tax? ***k no. Australia doesnt. China doesnt. Most of Europe doesnt.

But not this ***king dump of an island. We are getting raped left right and centre.

Am I wrong? Anyone else experienced similar figures?

 

[Laivasse]

I imported a headphone amp from the US to Ireland a few years back. VAT in Ireland was higher than the UK at that time, so a similarly bloated chunk was added on to the price I paid. I was prepared for that.

I wasn't prepared for the fact that Irish customs had, from what I could tell, come up with a VAT total in dollars and then charged the exact same figure in euros without conversion. The result was predictably exorbitant. However I didn't have any recourse to recover my robbed money, unless I wanted to hand my delivery back into a limbo which presumably would have lasted weeks while I rang around between UPS and customs. You've got to pay the guy on the doorstep if you want your stuff.

Never import without realising what a pain in the arse it can be. Don't forget you may also have to use an international parcel service if you need to return anything or take advantage of warranties - it may be stipulated in the warranty what kind of post you have to use, you may have to pay 2-way postage, etc - and that can cost hundreds also.

 

[Higlac]

Just think of it this way: You just paid for some random old man's viagra.

 

[Krynn72]

What makes something an "import"? Is it just having something shipped from out of the country to you? Because I do that all the time, like 25% of all my internet orders are from another country, and I don't pay anything except maybe shipping. Usually its free shipping too.

 

[Stormy]

Sometimes you can get items marked as a gift which can help reduce a lot of the tax

 

[PvtRyan]

I got a watch from Hong Kong. The watch was around 110 euro. The import tax? I think around 40. So that's nearly a 40% markup. I wasn't prepared for that.

 

[StardogChampion]

They have this for digital goods too. I had to pay 20% Danish tax and 20% UK tax.

 

[Stylo]

But not this ***king dump of an island. We are getting raped left right and centre.

Haha, I hear you, Brother.

 

[Bad^Hat]

Wow, that sucks. We have it pretty sweet here I guess, get stuff ridiculously cheap from places like Amazon UK since it subtracts VAT. Also our exchange rate to USD is so great that, for instance, Steam games are about half what we'd pay here after conversion, unless the publisher has artificially marked them up (*cough* Activision).

 

[dfc05]

Sometimes you can get items marked as a gift which can help reduce a lot of the tax

^This is what I thought. Not from any personal experience, but I think that was the gist of the whole p-p-p-powerbook thing.

 

[Naph]

We pay heavy island tax through retail, our personal imports are hardly taxed at all.











That's why my 3DS was bought in the USA.

 

[Polaris]

New EU imposed law. I hate this nonsense, since it has been introduced in my country I don't use my eBay and Amazon accounts anymore. Free market FTW. :|

 

[Dekstar]

I hate British tax in general. 20% of my earnings? A whole FIFTH!? If the government wants to do a fifth of my job at B&Q, I'd gladly give them the 20%.

#wouldratherthetaxonthewealthyincreasesoicanaffordyachts

 

[Stylo]

Bankers paying themselves billions in bonuses per year but British Gov take 20% of the working man's money. What?

 

[Minister]

Seriously complaining about 20% tax?

I've never imported anything to the UK but I did when I was studying in Sweden. That shit was ****ing expensive, I just put it down to Sweden being Sweden. Seems like I'm unfortunately wrong.

 

[Dynasty]

Bankers paying themselves billions in bonuses per year but British Gov take 20% of the working man's money. What?

Unfortunately, that situation is the public being jealous.

Yes banks are like vultures and take more than they give to make a profit, but hey, all companies do so why not them? And the bonuses will be % based. So if the bank makes a huu-huuuuge profit one year, then the employee contracts (accordingly) state they are entitled to a percentage of it. Banks publically announce new record-breaking profits, therefore bankers recieve record-breaking bonuses. It's really no different to a Ferrari dealer getting a higher bonus per sale compared to a Ford dealer; Ferraris cost more, so the % is higher. Same for recruitment agents. Any other similar type of business.

But England is probably the worst taxed country in the world, and we're still in the ***t. Rising utility bills. Rising fuel. Rising rising rising, we're all in the ***t, yet there goes a few more billion to bail out Greece (which, granted, was the right choice), and more millions to help Africa's drought...surely fix our problems first?

Fuel in the UK is actually one of the cheapest in Europe...before taxes. It nearly doubles in price after those. And the government wants more to cover road maintenance even though the majority of it goes into something else.

And then the motherload of insults; inheritance tax. ''Oh sorry to hear your parents were killed horrifically by (insert reason), but we see their house is worth £600k. The threshold is £250k...so you owe us *tap tap tap*, hmm, £240k (40...mother...***king...percent).'' I want to stroll into the house of commons and just scream at them for that reason, but it's all on deaf ears unless the UK goes bloody V-for-Vendetta on their asses. Oh that would be awesome.

Breathing tax will be next.

 

[Maestro]

I would say this is your government's spending habits.

Then I remember the only reason I don't have these taxes to cover our government spending is because we're borrowing on credit we don't have and the pyramid scheme will eventually collapse, and then life will suck a gigantic dick in every possible way.

 

[Sulkdodds]

And then the motherload of insults; inheritance tax. ''Oh sorry to hear your parents were killed horrifically by (insert reason), but we see their house is worth £600k. The threshold is £250k...so you owe us *tap tap tap*, hmm, £240k (40...mother...***king...percent).'' I want to stroll into the house of commons and just scream at them for that reason, but it's all on deaf ears unless the UK goes bloody V-for-Vendetta on their asses. Oh that would be awesome.

Er, truly sorry about your lots, but inheritance tax is basically hereditary power. When you think about it in those terms, it isn't actually particularly congruent with a free and democratic society unless curtailed by some limit, indeed almost absolutely. Frankly I would deem the total loss of inheritance over a certain maximum a decent price to pay for a functioning welfare state, if the equation could work out that way, but then of course it may be in the nature of governments that they cannot be trusted with that much money. Then there's the incentive it would create for the rich to move all their assets outside the country and inherit them in other places through cunning mechanisms (though they do this already).