How do you avoid custom charges?

[Villiam Hayes]

Originally Posted by Douglas R

Shipping from America via another European country does not avoid customs charges. They probably do this to economise on their shipping costs, although in the case of Axel they charge VAT in advance.

Planetaxel ship from their warehouse in the States or Canada to their warehouse in the E.U. and then forward it to the buyer thus avoiding custom charges.

[Douglas R]

Originally Posted by stuarty

Planetaxel ship from their warehouse in the States or Canada to their warehouse in the E.U. and then forward it to the buyer thus avoiding custom charges.

They don't avoid customs charges - no supplier can legally do that. The charges are worked into the total cost of the item.

[chip75]

Originally Posted by TotoroDragon

well not to argue with you,but i have been told before on many a website that royal mail ect do not take into account the cost of postage,but they do with me.

Postage & Packaging should only been taken into account when you go over the limit. It must be extremely frustrating when they lump P & P into it when the item is under £15. I can't remember anyone who has had their money refunded after they've been charged incorrectly!

1.What does HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) mean when they refer to the import of low value goods?

Imports of low value goods are any consignments, made up of goods of a negligible value, that are dispatched direct from a third country (non-EU) country to a consignee in the EU which may be admitted free of customs import duty and/or import VAT.

Currently this means that:

• consignments with an intrinsic value of £15 or less are free from both customs duty and import VAT.
• import VAT is payable when the intrinsic value of the goods is over £15.
• customs duty (and import VAT) is payable when the intrinsic value of the imported goods is over £135.

2.What is the intrinsic value?

The intrinsic value is the price paid or payable for the goods excluding postage and packing and insurance costs.

[ArnoBD]

Hi ,

Thanks very much for the tip about planetaxel.com !
I just ordered there 11 BD's ...
Two items are on "0-3 additional days" delivery, the others were marked "in stock".

Since i had to pay extra at the postman, when he delivered the "Wanted" box I ordered from Amazon.com, I only ordered a few times a single disc to avoid extra payment.
So this is my 1st major order since from oversea (~135 euro)...

I will keep you updated on how delivery goes !

Current state:
Sunday Apr 1 @ 20:28 GMT Order registered
Sunday Apr 1 @ 20:28 GMT Pending
Monday Apr 2 - 1 e-mail , 1 item dispatched
Tuesday Apr 3 - 10 e-mails. 10 items dispatched seperately

Received:
Apr 11 : 1 from the 10 (from the UK)
Apr 12 : 8 from the 10 (from NL)
Apr 13 : 1 from the 1st, Apr.2 (from GER)


Apr 13: Still waiting for 1 title, 1 from the 10.

From one received title the box is damaged.


With kind regards,

Arno

[blu_sharpy]

The 0-3 additional days discs shouldn't take long at all. I had a few that said 0-3 days and were sourced within hours so there shouldn't be a wait and you shouldn't have to pay anything extra as everything in your order gets shipped separately anyway.

[Mr. Thomsen]

Originally Posted by Douglas R

Shipping from America via another European country does not avoid customs charges. They probably do this to economise on their shipping costs, although in the case of Axel they charge VAT in advance.

In my case, yes it does. Anything imported from another EU country is not liable to custom charges. That's a fundamental part of the EU treaty.

All other EU countries have a higher limit than the Danish. Therefore, if an order from the US has entered an EU country legally because of said country's higher import limit, the Danish customs are not allowed to charge you for the goods. They may only charge for goods that have come directly to Denmark from outside the EU.

[Mr. Thomsen]

Originally Posted by Douglas R

They don't avoid customs charges - no supplier can legally do that. The charges are worked into the total cost of the item.

No, but they play the system. They basically exploit the fact that all countries in the EU have different import limits. They import the discs to a country with a high import limit, then repack them and ship them to their destination.

As the discs have been imported legally to EU and were below the importing country's import limit, the destination country is not allowed to charge customs. As I wrote above, it is a fundamental principle in the EU that goods can travel freely between the member countries without being subjected to customs inspection.