Another Vat/Duty Thread.

TomCo

I'm about to buy a camera from a Japanese seller for ~€200 with €27 postage, the seller has "no VAT Duty" in the product title. How does he achieve this?

He's a power seller registered since 2000 with 98.6% positive rating selling solely cameras and projectors. Most of his buyers are in the UK and a few in Ireland all buying a camera for a similar value to mine and none have been stung for duty or vat.

I managed to find only found one German buyer in his feedback who complained about having to pay duty. The seller said that the buyer paid the duty rather than allow the package to be sent back.

Is this accurate? If you refuse to pay the duty or disavow knowledge of the package is it returned to sender?

smemon

it's a risk. theres no way he can claim to be vat free, even if he did send it as a gift or declare the value as €40 or something.

i'd be wary. electronics are big sellers and the vat guys here know that. all bulky - non-envelope packages are red flagged. the only electrical item that will creep through the system is memory cards because of their letter like appearance

mikeanywhere

I bought a few grands worth of camera kit through an Ebay shop in Hong Kong. He declared that the kit would be VAT free.

However, the way it worked, was I paid the import tax and sent him the bill which he very quickly refunded back to my paypal account.

Well impressed!!!

Ruu_Old

Be careful when ordering anything that claims to be VAT duty free because its probably not, if it does happen then you would be entitled to the cost of it from the seller so I guess its not so bad.