Page 1 of uk custom & vat charges for guitar purchased from usa used

i bought a used guitar from a guy in california on ebay it cost £150 and that included the shipping as well,how much will i get stung for when it arrives can anyone give me a total on £150 i spent everthing ill have to shell out

Probably the best part of £30 for tax and duty. Maybe a wee bit more including the handler fee from whoever you`re getting it shipped by. Royal Mail has always been £4 with me. but i`ve heard of people getting it shipped by other companys and getting billed over a tenner in fees.

But not everyone gets stung. I once got a parcel from the states, and the label on the shipment tag was illegible from wear and tear, so the F[at]srekc couldn`t tell how much it was worth.

This item was edited on Sunday, 12th September 2004, 20:12

if you get the seller to mark the item as a gift you are likely not to get charged.

Quote:
if you get the seller to mark the item as a gift you are likely not to get charged.

No you will still get stung. Marking as a gift just increases the limit from £18 to £36 and asking the sender to do it could get them in hot water.

Have a look at these two files from HMCE:

Shopping on the Internet
Common Internet Goods - tells you the duty and VAT rates.

On a guitar duty is 3.5% and VAT is 17.5%, so on £150 you`ll pay:

Duty - 150 * 3.5% = 5.25
VAT - (150 + 5.25) * 17.5% = £27.17

So your total will be £32.42 plus whatever the delivery company charge for collecting it ie Parcelforce could be between £8 and £13.50.

Or you could get lucky and it might slip through...

hello,someone told me to get the sender to mark the parcel as damaged and you wont get charged.is this true or is he pulling my leg.? cheers.

best way around it (considering it will be a big package):

mark the item as : item returned after repair.

also, state it has no commercial value. you may end up needing a receipt of some sort stating you originally got it from the UK tho.