didn’t know if chat or bike forum? But guessed lots of people here import bike bits…

if i was to import something (from outside of the eurozone) – what do i have to do? suspect something to do with tax is involved?

anyone here have any experience of importing

You will pay import duty plus VAT. Think the courier just collects the difference when they hand the goods to you. Possibly also a handling fee by the courier.

Obviously VAT is 15%, for import duty you need to look at the UK Trade Tariff and decide what commodity your item is.

http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/tariffFilter?export=false&r.lc=en&r.s=a

(actually, you might want to double check whether VAT and duty are the same thing, its early and I can’t think straight 🙂 )

I bought some forks off ebay that came from Taiwan a few weeks ago. They arrived and then the courier (Parcelforce) wrote to me telling me that i had to pay VAT and a Parcelforce collection fee before they would be delivered. Paid it online and then the forks were delivered the next day.
Cost me £15 VAT and £13.50 fee on top. (£132 purchase price).
Import duty seem like a lottery though as the chap who recommended the forks to me got his sent with no extra fees at all. If you get lucky whatever you’ve ordered will just get delivered the same as if it had been sent in england.

I just got stung not so much by customs but dick turpin post office
got some stuff from OZ and had to pay vat £ 4.38.
ok not too bad but then £8 charged by PO for the priviledge .

goods imported in to the EU with a value over £18 ( for vat purposes) and over £120 ( for import duty porposes)
or goods imported from one private person to another as a gift with a value over £36 are subject to customs charges.

It is a bit of a gamble your package may get looked at or you may get away with nothing.

oh, also the £18 or £36 threshold thing now includes the postage fees as i found out when i bought a chain device from the states recently. I suppose this is to stop folk on ebay dodging ebay and customs fees by charging way over the odds for the postage and way under for the product itself. It also meant my chain device ended up costing a quid more than if i had bought it within the uk, and took three weeks to get here. 🙁

ditto the above, I recon the more profesional soethig looks the more lieky it is to get caught.

Jiffybags seem invatiably to be hit, a fok box thats been bashed a few times, an covered in parcel tape, not so.