Moving in EU:Do you have to travel with the drink to avail of 'personal use' here.

ircoha

My question is as follows:
If you travel from Europe to here with a van load of gargle, there is not any tax/duty due as long as it is for personal consumption.

Can the same exemption be availed of if you have it shipped, as part of your personal belongings by 'Nat Ross' or equivalent?

A family member is moving from Belgium to here, hence the ?
Thanks.

murphaph

Well it's not really an exemption he'd be claiming. It's his stuff which he's already paid VAT/duty on in another EU state, so regardless how it enters the RoI there's no duty payable as he's not selling it on.

Revenue would have to prove you were going to sell it on if they wanted to levy duty on it and as it's for personal use, they couldn't prove such.

Del2005

AFAIK there used to be limits of ~80l of beer and less for spirits. But when UK customs went mad and started imponding vehicles with more the EU, or someone brought a case, stepped in and said that the customs have to provide proof that you are selling it before they can conficate.

You can't have alcohol or cigs shipped into the country, was a big case late last year in the Europen Court of Human rights, this was for mail order stuff. I don't know how they would deal with alcohol bought already and shipped in by a 3rd party, but that sounds like mail order to me (just being devils advocate here).

Not too sure how they would treat a removals van/truck, but the removals company may have its own restrictions on shipping alcohol in large quantities.

Alun

Del2005 wrote: »

Not too sure how they would treat a removals van/truck, but the removals company may have its own restrictions on shipping alcohol in large quantities.

Whenever we moved around Europe, and lately to here from Holland, the movers just put any booze right at the very back of all the stuff in the truck, so you'd have to completely unpack the truck to get at it ... their suggestion, not mine

Beware of the UK customs on the Dover Calais route, they are a law unto themselves!!!! They use the guilty until proven innocent method. Traders as far north as Birmingham do the "booze cruise" and are regurlary targetted.

Victor

Customs are usually happy with something like up to a year's worth of reasonable drinking.

Our man in Havana

What would be a year's worth of reasonable drinking?

trellheim