Customs & Excise....

Secur1

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Hi people, i just had a run in with the ppl at Customs and Excise here in Ireland over the purchase of my Draco, but thanks to some quick thinking and the art of B.S. i managed to avoid paying anything to them...

Still i would like to raise this subject as i simply do not understand why they asked me to pay tax plus all kinds of charges on an item that was not available here and i didn't buy it from the states to avoid paying tax here.
It's not like i had the option to buy it here lets say for 100 euro but i bought it from the states at 80 so i saved 20 euro...
And it wasn't even about the money, even though it wasn't a small ammount nor am i someone that has money to throw away. It was the principle of the thing as i believe it was unfair.
I was about to pull the trigger on a WolfEyes Boxer 24w before this happend, but now i am having second thoughts because even with the CPF discount in place at pts i will still have to pay over 500 USD to get this if Customs gets a hold of it.
I have also been reading in other posts by members in the UK, being hammered with Customs duties, so i am guessing this is an EU thing.

To me common logic dictates that if you decide to purchase an item that is available both localy and abroad, but is significantly cheaper abroad, then tax should be applied by Customs. But what if the item is not available anywhere here ? Why should i pay tax on it and what do i pay the tax for ? I mean what do i get in return for the tax i pay on the item ?

Personaly, i see it as pure blackmail, pay us X ammount of money or you will not get what you have already payed for and is rightfully your property.

So what are your views and opinions on the matter ?
Also any legal advice on the matter would be welcomed as long as it doesn't infringe uppon the forums rules and regulations.
 

WNG

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tax is a form of highway robbery. UK is rich with the tradition of the highwaymen. Rob you as you travel on a stretch of road as a form of taxation payment to use said road.
:)

I just had a similar run-in with Canadian customs over a set of new wheels and used tires purchased nearly a year earlier. They were going to seize them. unless I pay $165 duty for the pleasure of driving through the border with them in my trunk. I had to pay or lose my extra set of wheels.

Yeah, customs suck!
 

Manzerick

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I can already see this turing into "The Red Coats are coming"


I think it is crazy but most tax laws are. I'm in favor of a national sales tax so ALL pay the bill not just legal eagles :)
 

Secur1

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Personaly, up until last week i thought Customs was there to check :

1) If the item imported was legal in the country.
2) If the item was purchased at a significantly lower price with intent to be re-sold here for profit.

That is why i almost hit the roof when i read the letter i got from them asking me to pay them 2.5% on Customs duties plus 21% on VAT plus handling fees. And the last one, to me, was the one that took the cake. Handling fees ?! I had to pay them to send it because they stopped it and took it out of normal mail circulation ?!

If anything they should pay me for the anguish they caused to me ! I received the letter late Friday afternoon, by that time their offices where closed, so i spent an entire weekend cursing like a sailor every 5min because i was so pissed off about it. When Monday came i started calling them from 9 in the morning, at 10:30 they switched off the phone and put me straight to voice mail, because i guess they got tired of hearing the phone ringing !
And i am paying for their paychecks with my taxes here....
 
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Sigman

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Manzerick said:
I can already see this turing into "The Red Coats are coming"
Ha! That's EXACTLY what I was thinking!! (and to be posted by a Bostonian...you're killin' me!!) :crackup: Next thing we'll read about all the torches being tossed into the drink to protest!!

BTW Secur1...I totally agree with you!
 
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Secur1

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So now, if i want to buy the Boxer i will have to pay more than $100 to customs.... bringing the purchase price with the CPF discount in place to $517 give or take a few cent, which is more than a months rent for me. Or to put it even more into perspective, almost 2 weeks of work... which makes an already hard decission even harder :(
 

leduk

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Its not an EU thing (yet) although we may well be harmonized in the future.

Throw your common logic out of the window.

Often, depends on your laws, if you state the value of the item as less than a certain value (in the UK I think its about GBP £18, for example) customs view the item as being not significant and will let it though.

Imagine if you were importing these things in bulk and having to pay all the tax and duty and commission to an agent to handle all these things. Your $100 item suddenly becomes $150. Its why US products generally sell for twice the price in EU countries. And its why you can't get them locally, its not worth selling them.

If you were selling these things in small quantities you could get them shipped over one at a time and avoid the duty.

So the "honest" importer looses out to the "one by one" bloke.

C&E just blindly apply the law to everone.

I suppose you run the risk when understating the value that your item gets opened and investigated. You end up with a criminal charge for tax evasion.

Anyway, apart from, 'fess up, pay the amount.
Learn from the experience. And shop from US shops that will mark the value down on the packages and make it look like its a long lost cousin sending you your $20 birthday present.

Cheers.
 

Coop

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There are a few ways to reduce the chance of customs singling out your package for inspection. I had posted a few ways to do so, but Empath was kind enough to point out that this does not comply with CPF rules. Therefore I have re-formulated and deleted part of my suggestions.

1. A High value indication on a package will make it more attractive for customs to check it.

2. A package from a private individual is less prone to get checked than a package sent by a commercial company.
 
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Empath

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MayCooper, that's the wrong way to take this thread. Please reconsider your posted suggestions and either edit or delete them to bring them into compliance with our rules.
 
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Pellidon

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We routinely ship to our agent in the UK. Customs is a hit or miss thing on his packages. Mostly miss. They make up for it on the hits. For him that is a part of doing business and selling our product in Europe for us. For private purchases it is still a roll of the dice whether it gets dinged for duty at the receiver's end. When we ship by common carrier, Fed Ex, UPS, DHL, the duties are figured in to the shipping costs to some extent. Sometimes they get an additional spike before being released for pickup.

A little linguistic legerdemain can usually get you around the times when there should be no additional tax. Deceiving the tax man just doesn't work.

Over here we are supposed to pony up the sales tax to our state even when it is an out of state purchase. And I do every time. :rolleyes: I always expect to get a hit from customs on an overseas purchase and am pleased when it does not happen.
 

Secur1

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I know of ways to beat customs charges, i did it with the Draco, but that's not what i started this thread for.
First of all i did it to vent my frustration :) And second i was curious to see how the rest of the CPF members felt about it and get different points of view from around the globe.

So please no more talk of illicit nature :p

Anyway i decided to go ahead and get the Boxer, so i'll play the customs lottery, who knows i might get lucky and fly below the radar like the rest of the times i ordered stuff from abroad...
 

Fluffster

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Secur1, apparently they need to protect the ailing Irish flashlight industry...
Icelandic customs is especially vile, nothing gets past them! Driving to the outskirts of town to wait in line for 30 minutes so that I can pay them $10 to get my flashlight that I already paid $20 for does little good for my mental health...the entire process is mindbogglingly stupid. No way is that $10 gonna cover the cost of this bureaucratic nightmare!
 

flashgreenie

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yeah, its the same BS here in Sweden especially if you use a courier like DHL or Fedex. They stick you with customs duty, GST and handling fee. So it usually comes to a whopping extra 35% of the value I have to cough up. With the post system, its random. A really expensive book I bought from Amazon.com got through with no problems but a month later, 2 DVDs I ordered from Amazon got nailed.

I already pay a shitload on my income tax. Having to pay more tax on whatever I have leftover of my income when I buy stuff is vile...
:xyxgun:

goverment greed has no boundaries...
 
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