strangely, the last order i made from the uk was for a nice crash helmet for my wife, which was ordered thru addresspal, an irish forwarding company in the uk which i then pay import etc when it arrives in ireland. this time however for some reason the sender put the value of the helmet as 25£!! so i paid nearly nothing.
nice to win a little every now and then.
les.

A current "win" for us here in the UK, at least until the "Princess of Thieves" stops it, is that HMRC themselves don't levy VAT on any import below about £135. For example, if I bought some sleeving from DEET, or pistons from Enduronut then, as long as the declared value is less than £135, no VAT is charged.

I assume that this is because the vast majority of private imports are bought through fleabay, Alibaba, Amazon etc and, as they collect and remit the UK VAT to HMRC, they (HMRC) deem it not economically worthwhile to sort out what was bought from where, and therefore whether or not VAT has already been paid, and so wave everything through.

The big online sellers don't collect VAT on purchases above £135, and so VAT (and, I think, Import Tax) is raised by HMRC when it hits the UK. As well as the taxes, we have to pay the UK courier a fee for collecting the tax from us.

i hate those fees, "give me money, and give me more for taking it"

It’s like a dog chasing its tail. Almost getting like a real estate agent, collecting money on every squeaking land sale around here, even if it was sold 1000 times..
Wasn’t a tax paid on an item bought new? And now they seem it needs to be re-taxed?
Uffda..

........first started in the US, when some states introduced inter state taxes............

States don't have the power to collect sales tax in other states.  Sales tax is generally collected at the time of sale by the selling business.  The States could not enforce Sales Tax collection if the selling business was completely located in another state or the seller was a private party, 

The laws were changed at a Federal level to make companies like ebay and Amazon responsible for collecting the sales tax because they are deemed to be operating in all the states so a State can hold them responsible to collect Sales Tax.  

That "loophole" still exists though.  If you buy directly from a private party or a business from another state that ships to you and has no "nexus" in your state, they won't collect sales tax.  (Some states technically require residents to declare these types of purchases and pay the sales tax yourself to the state)

At about the same time, they made a similar change to "payment handling" companies like PayPal, Venmo, etc.  If you receive more than a few hundred dollars a year through those services, they became required to report how much money you received to the IRS.  Then you have to either pay income tax on that amount or prove why you don't have to.

 

Thanks Mark. 

Hey Alan, hope all is well on your side of the pond. Anyway, I wonder if you'd have better luck with a company like DHL, I know they ship world wide. Just a thought...