Buying Cigars

The Master of Disaster

Folks if you could give me advice or opinions on this it would be great. I'm looking to but some cigars for Christmas. I'm a somewhat regular smoker but normally this is limited to picking up cigars individually from the shops in town, normally Foxes. However I've been looking online at retailers in the UK and US mainly with the eye to picking up some brands that tend not to be stocked in the shops here. It's not so much an issue that I'm looking for rock-bottom prices although they do tend to work out slightly cheaper mainly because the brands I'm looking at are non-Cuban. I've searched through the forum and found one similar thread http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055896222 but that's mainly about what sites the OP should use to buy his cigars and where he can get the best prices.

I buy stuff off the internet quite a bit but it's usually from within the EU and things like books, DVDs etc. where it's as simple as paying for the item and P&P. I understand there's different rules when purchasing alcohol or tobacco. So I've done some research and it's all horribly confusing but if I order online I pay the following:

US: VAT (on value of goods plus postage), excise duty and customs tariff.
UK: As in EU don't have to play VAT(?), excise duty and customs tariff.

Excise duty seems to be steep! Roughly 270 per KG on cigars (how much does a box of 20 cigars weight?) and tariff varies depending where they're from? Further how do you pay these charges? Does customs send you a letter/email/phone call or what?

MODS please note that I'm not trying to find ways to avoid tax or any other charges. I'm trying to understand how I would legitamately go about ordering from an online source and how I would go about paying any charges that would arise from this. Of course I would like to get some idea of how much I could be paying because if it's going to cost me a lot more than buying the same quantity/quality here than I'll have to consider that.

Sorry that's a mouthful and a lot of questions but if there's anybody who regularly buys online let me know how you go about it below or drop me a PM. It'd be much appreciated!!

Cheers!

BeerNut

You have to pay VAT and duty on everything, whether it's coming from the EU or not. You only get exemption on goods moving within the EU if you are personally transporting them yourself.

For things ordered from outside the EU, the leaflet is here. Customs will stop the parcel and bill you for it before An Post release it.

Inside the EU is trickier. The merchant is supposed to make arrangements with Irish Revenue to pay all the taxes and duties before the goods are shipped to you. The Revenue's page on this is here.

The Master of Disaster

BeerNut wrote: »

You have to pay VAT and duty on everything, whether it's coming from the EU or not. You only get exemption on goods moving within the EU if you are personally transporting them yourself.

For things ordered from outside the EU, the leaflet is here. Customs will stop the parcel and bill you for it before An Post release it.

Inside the EU is trickier. The merchant is supposed to make arrangements with Irish Revenue to pay all the taxes and duties before the goods are shipped to you. The Revenue's page on this is here.

Thanks for that, those links are a lot clearer. I've now done a bit of maths to work it all out . It's interesting that buying them from outside the EU seems more straightforward than inside the EU (in terms of paying customs)!!

TomCo

I have a letter from customs somewhere I can scan for you.

Basically you have to send them a postal order for the amount they ask for in the letter, then an post will deliveryour parcel. You can't just collect it from the post office.