How to declare and prepay excise duty on cigars ordered from abroad

[Pleevy]

I received a lovely letter from Parcel Force today. 10 RyJ 1987 (Dominican) Churchills that i ordered about a month ago have a duty of ?170 to be paid. This was a massive shock considering i was only expecting a charge of around ?35, from what i worked out from the gov info site i used. The letter states that if payment is not made within 20 days that it will be returned to sender, i called a checked and found that in the event the item is returned, all charges will dissapear right back up from where customs pulled it out of the air.
Peter

ps - I hope this post hasn't broken any rules

EDIT: Just seen the sticky with regards to tax evasion. Pretty certain that being that the item is returned and i received no goods, that the tax hasn't been evaded. Rather i just have nothing to smoke.

[Lascaux]

Thats a crazy amount. I believe you pay VAT on the declared price of the cigars too, so that may affect. Also you have to declare the net weight of the cigars as often customs will just weigh the whole box and charge a lot more because of this.

[Simon-JG-hr]

Excellent tip their Lascaux. I believe EugeneSax had an issue whereby the carrier had weighed the whole package to determine customs liability. It's always worth checking how they have calculated the tax. Duty on 10 Churchill's should be around ?50 (working on average-ish weights), plus say another ?30-?40 in VAT. Either way, you should have received a bill which was sub-?100 (unless my maths is far worse than it used to be...) Most likely a Parcel Force cock-up (too lazy to do their job properly).

[Pleevy]

I decided it really wasn't worth the hassle and wrote it off as a loss. I have friends in different countries that like sending gifts

[Eddie]

Excellent tip their Lascaux. I believe EugeneSax had an issue whereby the carrier had weighed the whole package to determine customs liability. It's always worth checking how they have calculated the tax. Duty on 10 Churchill's should be around ?50 (working on average-ish weights), plus say another ?30-?40 in VAT. Either way, you should have received a bill which was sub-?100 (unless my maths is far worse than it used to be...) Most likely a Parcel Force cock-up (too lazy to do their job properly).

Don't forget the parcel farce admin charge of ?13 (IIRC)

[danialmartin7778]

Don't worry, It is not big matter. Dealer will be responsible for all activities.

[peanutpete]

Don't worry, It is not big matter. Dealer will be responsible for all activities.

this is wrong information, its up to you to declare any tax due if you import from abroad

[Deano]

He seems to have ignored the other 6 pages. Deary me.

[modem7]

Poop. Just got stung for ?63 (inc the ?8 from royal fail). Bleh.

Wish I had read the thread before ordering!

Does anyone know the procedure of contesting? (Or more to the point, somewhere that has general cigar weights?)

[BoneyBlade]

I Just asked a website in USA to tell me the cost of shipping and weight of cigars on $86 (?57) order of 20 robusto cigars in a box.
They said cost of shipping is $60 (?40) and the weight is 2 lb which is about 900 grams (which is just stupid weight for 20 cigars, she is definitely doing something wrong and not feeling our need for the exact net weight of the cigars).
Excise duty these days is about ?220 on a Kg of cigars so excise duty alone on 900 grams will be about ?200. No custom duty because cost + shipping is less then ?135.
So in total ?57 + ?40 = ?97 + ?200 = ?297 + ?60 (VAT at 20% on ?297) = ?357 + ?13 (handling fee) = ?370
Do the maths, compare ?57 to ?370 and say it with me.... fuck the world!!

Edit by Deano: removed URL.

[Deano]

This is life in the uk I'm afraid.

Please don't post links to non Uk sources.

[mrcigar]

Just read through this thread and get the distinct impression that the UK is whole heartedly bent on extracting out its countrymen as much money as possible. The word 'extortion' comes to mind.
Surely things can be made simpler as opposed to HMCE lurking in the shadows to rob and plunder those who fail to cover every base. They are like the speed cameras behind trees, positioned for the purposes of catching out the unwary motorist.
It's the hidden costs that make things even more frustrating, as well as the lack of immediately available information that should be on the HMCE site.
It all raises the question - is it worth importing and is there really much of a saving. There is also the question of going through all that hassle only to find that the parcel delivered to your door is a box of fake cubans.

[daniel2001]

Just read through this thread and get the distinct impression that the UK is whole heartedly bent on extracting out its countrymen as much money as possible. The word 'extortion' comes to mind.
Surely things can be made simpler as opposed to HMCE lurking in the shadows to rob and plunder those who fail to cover every base. They are like the speed cameras behind trees, positioned for the purposes of catching out the unwary motorist.
It's the hidden costs that make things even more frustrating, as well as the lack of immediately available information that should be on the HMCE site.
It all raises the question - is it worth importing and is there really much of a saving. There is also the question of going through all that hassle only to find that the parcel delivered to your door is a box of fake cubans.

Taxation in this country is a mess across the board, whether it's any form of personal, consumer or company/corporation taxation. The whole thing needs to be massively simplified, made more transparent and tax rates need to be reduced for everyone and everything (whilst enforcement of paying taxes is made absolute).

And cigars should be tax free.

[sheppsea]

And cigars should be tax free.

I second that!

[butternutsquashpie]

And cigars should be tax free.

Love the idea, but outsiders always put cigars and cigarettes together. They think it all smells and tastes terrible, and causes the same health issues. Therefore, they group them together in regulation AND taxation.

Now we all know that most cigar smokers are not addicted nor do it to get their fix of nicotine. This is proved well enough by the fact that no normal people under the age of 25 (except some special ones ) would even try to buy/smoke them. The same with a pipe. This just proves that ciagarettes and pipe tobacco&cigars should really be grouped diferently But the general public doesn't know that, unfortunately.

This is something that angers me wholey in my country, and apparently yours too. You can tell by the lack of my emoticons in this matter..........