Customs & Excise Charge-Dealextreme?

sonic.trip

Hi everyone,

sorry if this is in the wrong section,,


I have ordered many a parcel from dealextreme (hong kong) over the last two years and just today got a letter from the revenue explaining my item which I bought about 3 weeks ago is in the Dublin Mail Centre and will not be released until the relevant charges have been paid. It says to email them with the paypal receipt and they will email back applicable charges of:

relevant customs charge
VAT @ 21%
6euro handling fee

The letter states that all items over 22euo and outside of the EU will be subjected to these charges. The parcel in question was $33/e26.40 .In the last two years I have never had this happen, with many parcels over 22euro.

Just wondering are they clamping down, or has this happened to anyone else recently?

I don't mind paying 10 quid or so, but if it gets to the point of cost price of the item, i might just tell them to feck off!

any comments appreciated:

regards

sonics

Nody

It's random chance honestly; they do in general tighten it up for Christmas (a lot of high value packages due incoming) but they can grab it at any time.

jor el

Importing goods is subject to import duty and VAT. There is nothing new in this, as it's always been the case. Having 1 parcel stopped out of many over the last number of years does not equal a clamp down, it's just probability.

rubadub

sonic.trip wrote: »

The letter states that all items over 22euo and outside of the EU will be subjected to these charges. The parcel in question was $33/e26.40 .In the last two years I have never had this happen, with many parcels over 22euro.

I have been meaning to email revenue.ie about this. €22 is the limit however I recently found this on the revenue website.

http://www.revenue.ie/en/customs/leaflets/pn1179.html

Where the customs duty on a consignment of goods amounts to less than €10 it will not be collected. Similarly, VAT liability amounting to less than or equal to €6 will not be collected. No similar rule applies in the case of excise duty which will always be collected if the goods are liable to excise duty.

So if the limit is €6 and you are buying a item with 21% VAT then it could be €28.57 in value before you are liable. You are below this so I take it you should not be charged, it will be interesting to see what comes of this.

The thing is most packets from DX have $10 marked on them and I think they are marked as gifts. Customs are well aware of this scam and have probably given their own value to the item. If you can provide the paypal receipts to them you might have a chance with the link above. Though I would say they are quite annoyed with DX in general.

DYLF

are they clamping down

yeah they are stopping alot more these days for vat and duty... trying to get every penny they can i suppose...

jor el

DYLF wrote: »

yeah they are stopping alot more these days for vat and duty... trying to get every penny they can i suppose...

I've never seen any actual evidence to suggest that. They've always stopped as much as they could, and why would they not? People are just noticing it now.

sonic.trip

Emailed the revenue yesterday with my paypal receipt and they emailed back today to say my item was being released from the DMC, no charge

a good outcome!

@rubadub, yeah most DX items usually have $10 on them, I'm sure its customs worst enemy

DYLF

jor el wrote: »

I've never seen any actual evidence to suggest that. They've always stopped as much as they could, and why would they not? People are just noticing it now.

no they really are stopping alot more then they used to. especially for undervalued shipments from hong kong and china

pleasant Co.

jor el wrote: »

I've never seen any actual evidence to suggest that. They've always stopped as much as they could, and why would they not? People are just noticing it now.

What kind of evidence would you be in need of?

jor el

Mactard wrote: »

What kind of evidence would you be in need of?

A quote from customs officials saying they are stepping up operations, which I've never seen. They've been checking as much as they can since pretty much forever, I see no evidence of a crack down apart from the odd person saying there's a crack down.

DYLF

they arent necessarily stopping more.. but they are stopping alot more shipment fron HK and china for being undervalued, adding anti dumping taxes to alot more things these days etc.. all ways of getting more money

pleasant Co.

jor el wrote: »

A quote from customs officials saying they are stepping up operations, which I've never seen. They've been checking as much as they can since pretty much forever, I see no evidence of a crack down apart from the odd person saying there's a crack down.

I see, you're probably not going to get your evidence then, although based on the latter portion of your reply perhaps you have inside knowledge? In any case, I doubt any mention of a crackdown on imports would be made official to the public.

jor el

Mactard wrote: »

I doubt any mention of a crackdown on imports would be made official to the public.

Every Christmas people say there's a crack down, at the Airports and on postal imports. The only comment I ever heard was from an official on a radio station, who said there was never a crack down. There's just more people travelling, and people import more goods at that time of year, hence you notice it more. If they were to inspect more, then they'd need more staff, but the hiring embargo in the public service will not allow that.

rubadub

In Christmas's gone by I have seen customs spokesmen on the RTE news talking of internet buying, interestingly once I saw them saying the limit is €45, presumably it was not worth the bother collecting on smaller amounts, he made no mention of gift/non-gifts. But now they definitely are doing lower amounts, the limit being €22 (or possibly ~€28 if the VAT is 21%).

http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/0122/presswatch-business.html

Today in the press

Updated: 08:21, Monday, 22 January 2007

Thousands of internet shoppers have been hit with unexpected charges in a Revenue customs crackdown.

INTERNET SHOPPERS FACED CUSTOMS CHARGES - The Irish Times says thousands of internet shoppers have been hit with unexpected charges in a customs crackdown by the Revenue.

The paper says that last year, Revenue collected almost €2m in customs duty and VAT on parcels delivered by An Post from outside the EU, while further amounts were collected through private courier firms such as FedEx and UPS.

The Irish Times says extra customs and excise staff have been stationed at sorting offices to deal with a massive growth in internet shopping, much of it using sites in the US and the Far East. A Revenue spokesman denied that particular shopping websites were being targeted, but he agreed that customs staff had grown familiar with the most popular sites with Irish shoppers.

Top of the list are clothes sites, in particular companies such as Abercrombie & Fitch which have no shops in Ireland, and sites selling electronic goods.

I imagine stuff from the likes of play might come into port in batches, it would be easily/quickly processed as they are all similar, so it is not like a pile of all different packets which have to be examined, a post worker knows exactly where the value is, and what format the invoice will be.

There has to be a crossover point where they cannot have enough staff to deal with it. And if they are inundated with parcels I expect they just would single out the higher value ones.

jor el

rubadub wrote: »

In Christmas's gone by I have seen customs spokesmen on the RTE news talking of internet buying, interestingly once I saw them saying the limit is €45, presumably it was not worth the bother collecting on smaller amounts, he made no mention of gift/non-gifts. But now they definitely are doing lower amounts, the limit being €22 (or possibly ~€28 if the VAT is 21%).

I've heard the same thing in the past too. They used to say anything under about €50 was going to be OK. They may now be taking a more strict stance, imposing the €22 limit.

Items coming from Hong Kong, that often have false declarations, are likely to be targeted. Anything with a declared value of a few euro, but is shipped in a large parcel, is going to draw attention. I don't think this is anything new though, as I've seen this happen years ago.