Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2010/04/17
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Joseph (and others), When someone resident in the EU buys something from a merchant outside the EU, the rule is that the recipient must pay his local VAT on delivery, plus any duty that may be applicable. In the case of photo equipment, the duty is small: something like 4% on bodies and nothing on lenses, or the other way round. The VAT is much more substantial, e.g. 17.5% in the UK if I am not mistaken. It is the job of the delivery company to collect the VAT and duty. Now, sometimes I have been lucky and the post office has simply delivered the product to me without any charges. This has happened both in the Netherlands and (much more frequently :-)) here in Spain. But it is an act of negligence on their part, albeit one in which I happily acquiesce :-) The private delivery companies like UPS or Fedex are much less likely to commit such an act of negligence, and they often charge additional fees for doing the customs paperwork. For that reason, whenever I buy from the US, I specify the USPS as the carrier and will simply not do business with merchants who insist on using UPS etc. Cheers, Nathan Nathan Wajsman Alicante, Spain http://www.frozenlight.eu http://www.greatpix.eu http://www.nathanfoto.com Books: http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/search?search=wajsman&x=0&y=0 PICTURE OF THE WEEK: http://www.fotocycle.dk/paws Blog: http://www.fotocycle.dk/blog On Apr 17, 2010, at 6:40 PM, Joseph Yao wrote: > What Import Duties? > > I have been selling photo equipment to the UK for over ten years and none > of > my customers has ever had to pay import duties or VAT. > > I am sure fellow UK LUGger Jem Kime can confirm. > > Joseph > > > On 17/04/2010 12:48 AM, "Eric Calderwood" <eric.calderwood at > btinternet.com> > wrote: > >> I contacted the seller yesterday, however with him being in Canada and >> Import Duties etc being what they are here in the UK it would make it a >> rather expensive proposition, otherwise I would have already snapped it >> up. >> >> Cheers >> >> Eric > > > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information >