# Customs and Excise duty



## cherami

I came across an interesting paragraph whilst finding out why I had been charged by the post office 22e for delivery of tea from the UK.

*If you buy on the internet or if you receive a package from a private individual, only your carrier can tell you the status of your package (delays, delays and blockages) or inform you about the management fees applied to its processing. Often referred to as “customs charges” for shorthand, these charges do not correspond to the duties and taxes levied by the administration but to the management fees applied by the service provider delivering the package.*

Can this be true that additional charges are being levied without reason.

I ordered Tea from the Uk somewhile back and was not charged any further monies, however this time charges were implemented, no receipt from La Poste.


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## SPGW

Same here. I bought an item made in Italy, for under €10. This was my first use of Amazon, who are now on my boycott list. They charged an additional €10 for p&p. The goods were delivered via UK for no obvious reason except for the carrier to demand an additional €10 on arrival. Fortunately relatively small amounts, but multiply by millions of people and we’re funding alot of private jets.


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## eairicbloodaxe

It is one of the "benefits" of Brexit.

Import/export with UK is now so complicated with so much paperwork, I read recently that 80% of small companies had stopped their cross border online sales.

But these charges are NOT being levied without reason. Someone in the courier company has to complete the forms, check them, get them scanned, read them, check them etc. etc. at every step of the delivery. Plus there's the accounting/invoicing/banking to take the money off you and pay the actual duties to the authorities. All of this is extra admin time for no actual benefit... which goes onto the cost paid by the customer.

The reason why you don't always get charged extra is because the charging process itself is so new it doesn't work properly yet. 


Kind regards



Ian


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## cherami

eairicbloodaxe said:


> It is one of the "benefits" of Brexit.
> 
> Import/export with UK is now so complicated with so much paperwork, I read recently that 80% of small companies had stopped their cross border online sales.
> 
> But these charges are NOT being levied without reason. Someone in the courier company has to complete the forms, check them, get them scanned, read them, check them etc. etc. at every step of the delivery. Plus there's the accounting/invoicing/banking to take the money off you and pay the actual duties to the authorities. All of this is extra admin time for no actual benefit... which goes onto the cost paid by the customer.
> 
> The reason why you don't always get charged extra is because the charging process itself is so new it doesn't work properly yet.
> 
> 
> Kind regards
> 
> 
> 
> Ian


Can I first comment that Brexit may well be the excuse for charging these amounts but lets be clear these amount are not repeat not going to customs and excise they are going into pockets of the companies who deliver the goods. Now when you ask a courier to deliver a parcel they charge transport fees and these should be inclusive. Otherwise they could say well we will charge you later at what rate we feel like.

Sending goods from the UK the form you are talking about takes about 3 minutes to complete.How much should they charge for this three minutes, because I think 22e is way over the top.


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## eairicbloodaxe

cherami said:


> Can I first comment that Brexit may well be the excuse for charging these amounts but lets be clear these amount are not repeat not going to customs and excise they are going into pockets of the companies who deliver the goods. Now when you ask a courier to deliver a parcel they charge transport fees and these should be inclusive. Otherwise they could say well we will charge you later at what rate we feel like.
> 
> Sending goods from the UK the form you are talking about takes about 3 minutes to complete.How much should they charge for this three minutes, because I think 22e is way over the top.


It's not the 3 minutes to complete the form, it's all the EXTRA minutes throughout the process to process the admin (which they did not have to do before), caused by that 3 minutes.

A friend is in the courier business, they have had to hire dozens more admin employees since the system changed. Courier companies are not making a killing out of this clusterf*ck. (Yet).

Kind regards


Ian


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## cherami

What is the company out of interest that has to employ so many staff?


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## Bevdeforges

Did you order your merchandise from Amazon, or through Amazon from one of their "third party vendors?" The third party vendors often have very different policies on packing and shipping costs than Amazon itself. And as they say in the information quoted above, it depends entirely on the shipper. 

Lately I notice the Amazon here in France pretty much does its own shipping (at least locally). Don't know how that works if you're ordering from Amazon, Italy or Amazon UK these days.


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## Crabtree

Basically the companies have to pay customs they have to complete paperwork they have to forward that paperwork keep a record of it certify that the item complies with EU regs.It all takes time and people to do it.


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## eairicbloodaxe

cherami said:


> What is the company out of interest that has to employ so many staff?


It Delivers parcels internationally, Has yellow vans, with a red Logo.


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## eairicbloodaxe

And here is a handy guide to some of the reasons why you now pay more for your tea, and me more for my guitar parts.



https://www.dhl.com/content/dam/dhl/global/core/documents/pdf/glo-core-brexit-customer-information.pdf



Didn't put that sh1t on the side of a bus, did you Boris? (Probably because it wouldn't fit...)

Kind regards


Ian


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## SPGW

All I knew in my case when ordering, was that the order was made with Amazon. There was no indication where the goods were coming from or if via a non-EU country, or that the carrier might have charges in addition to those already included. I suppose there was a T&C agreement that I didn’t bother reading.


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## cherami

Bevdeforges said:


> Did you order your merchandise from Amazon, or through Amazon from one of their "third party vendors?" The third party vendors often have very different policies on packing and shipping costs than Amazon itself. And as they say in the information quoted above, it depends entirely on the shipper.
> 
> Lately I notice the Amazon here in France pretty much does its own shipping (at least locally). Don't know how that works if you're ordering from Amazon, Italy or Amazon UK these days.


Hi, no it was direct with a Tea company, who used DHL to courier it across from the UK and they did not charge any extra. Also I have had Yorkshire Tea sent via a person in the Uk and not been charged at any stage and it was a simple procedure. I have had many items sent all under the threshold of 150e. This I understand to be limit of not paying customs and excise. It is also interesting to note that many on ebay are charging these extra charges, calling import duty. Just one big con.


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## cherami

Crabtree said:


> Basically the companies have to pay customs they have to complete paperwork they have to forward that paperwork keep a record of it certify that the item complies with EU regs.It all takes time and people to do it.


My understanding is that they only have to pay customs if duty is due and in that case one understands there will be a little extra work involved. But when there is no customs duty what other paperwork would be needed and why don't certain transport companies state this when they quote a transport price, are they not being dishonest if they fail to mention this extra amount. I purchased a small part from spraydirect and they guarantee not import charges, however I received an email asking for a further amount for delivery and because I did not pay that on line they doubled the charges when they came.


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## Bevdeforges

It's "interesting" to see how these extra charges and things are rolling out in the wake of Brexit. Twenty years ago I used to go through something similar when ordering merchandise from the US - where the shipping company would only deliver if you had a check/cheque ready in the amount they asked for to cover "customs and import charges." And a big chunk of that was an "administrative fee" for pulling together all the paperwork. In point of fact, the other big chunk of those fees was plain and simple old VAT - since bringing anything in from outside the EU means full VAT has to be charged (and on not only the value of the merchandise, but also applied to the shipping charges). It's part of what the UK signed up for when they voted to Brexit in the first place.


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## cherami

Bevdeforges said:


> It's "interesting" to see how these extra charges and things are rolling out in the wake of Brexit. Twenty years ago I used to go through something similar when ordering merchandise from the US - where the shipping company would only deliver if you had a check/cheque ready in the amount they asked for to cover "customs and import charges." And a big chunk of that was an "administrative fee" for pulling together all the paperwork. In point of fact, the other big chunk of those fees was plain and simple old VAT - since bringing anything in from outside the EU means full VAT has to be charged (and on not only the value of the merchandise, but also applied to the shipping charges). It's part of what the UK signed up for when they voted to Brexit in the first place.


Before I ordered the Tea I was informed that customs excise duty was exempt on Tea for the amount I wanted. I accept those that voted for and against Brexit, what I don't like is people blaming everything on Brexit. This problem seems to be manufactured by certain couriers who entered into an agreement with the shipper and then reneged on the agreement and charged further fee's (note without an invoice or receipt) or any explanation for the fees. One thing is clear is that these companies are working together so it is hard to even start an investigation. So from now on all demands for extra fees will be denied and they can send the goods back, because clearly the Tea company new nothing of extra charges. I will now buy tea direct from Barrys which is almost the same tea but they are in southern Ireland.


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## rynd2it

I have ordered many things from the UK since moving to France in 2019. If the value of the item is less than 150E then there is NO customs duty, there may be VAT depending the item and whether or not it was paid in the UK.

I have been charged various amounts by La Poste with no invoice or statement and no rational explanation for the amount. For example, package worth over €65 incurred no charges, an item valued at €12 incurred a charge of €16 with no explanation or receipt. On a couple of occasions I have received the offer to pay La Poste on line and those rates are much lower than paying the postie at the door. On one occasion I was asked for €16 Euros at the door when I had already paid €7 online - and I had to prove I had paid it before she agreed to leave the parcel.

Don't blame this on Brexit, it's down to appalling negotiation of the withdrawal agreement and blatant profiteering by the couriers, notably La Poste.


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## cherami

As an agreement on shipping cost are made before goods are sent and no duty is required, then to my way of understanding these charges are pure extortion on the part of the carrier. Brexit negotiations are bad I agree but I also think there is bit of French ******y going on.


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## eairicbloodaxe

rynd2it said:


> Don't blame this on Brexit, it's down to appalling negotiation of the withdrawal agreement and blatant profiteering by the couriers, notably La Poste.


Errmmm... the only reason we HAD to negotiate an appalling withdrawal agreement was BECAUSE of Brexit... Just saying...



cherami said:


> As an agreement on shipping cost are made before goods are sent and no duty is required, then to my way of understanding these charges are pure extortion on the part of the carrier.


Don't confuse "no duty required" with "no paperwork necessary". I work in international finance and the amount of sh1tty unecessary internal paperwork we have to fill in to declare accounts or transactions that will have Nil tax levied is indescribable.

To my way of understanding if it was pure extortion on the part of the carrier, wouldn't they be charging everyone, all the time? Not the various random annoying one offs experienced by people here.


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## rynd2it

eairicbloodaxe said:


> Errmmm... the only reason we HAD to negotiate an appalling withdrawal agreement was BECAUSE of Brexit... Just saying...


We didn't have to negotiate an appalling agreement, they could have negotiated a good one but couldn't be bothered to work at it


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## Crabtree

I think what you should have said was "We could have negotiated a good one but did not have the negotiators with the intellectual capacity nor the political acumen to do it"
In other words- to use a football analogy-Barnier nutmegged every Little Britain player.


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## rynd2it

Crabtree said:


> I think what you should have said was "We could have negotiated a good one but did not have the negotiators with the intellectual capacity nor the political acumen to do it"
> In other words- to use a football analogy-Barnier nutmegged every Little Britain player.


😆😆😆😆😆


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