Does anyone know if I will have to pay extra UK import taxes/duties if I buy a new bike frame from the US via ebay?
Ta

bought a HT 29ER frame and fork via ebay, cost me £27 for customs clearance and delivery from airport to front door, infact it cost more for that part of the trip rather than to travel across the Atlantic god dam ocean !

Yes, IME it tends to be down to how the retailer marks up the custom tag ie if they tick the 'gift' box or state contents are low value you'll avoid paying import tax. Otherwise you will end up having more to pay…

shipping cost plus a shippers import handling fee typically £20-£40 which may well not be included in the quoted shipping cost

you should pay duty which think is 4% on parts (assume correct code applied at point of entry think its more like 15% if gets treated as a made up bike) plus vat at 15% on goods and on all the costs up to point of arrival in UK

Thanks for all the info
Antigee, do you know if all the charges apply if it is a used item?
Cheers

i believe so see section 3.2

http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageTravel_ShowContent&id=HMCE_CL_000014&propertyType=document

Yep, that clears it up
Thanks antigee