Paying duty on goods from USA

[xanderma]

I am going to US soon and want to buy an ornament while I'm there. It's about 18-24" tall, even bigger when it's boxed and quite heavy.

When we asked while there last year, we were told it would cost about $100 to ship (it costs about $170 to buy).

My question is this - if I buy it when I'm there this year, should I pay to have it shipped or bring it home myself with our check-in luggage?

If I ship it, what do I do about customs & excise?

If I bring it home myself, do I have to declare it and go through the red channel?

And if I do that, will they search all our other luggage to see if there's anything else we should declare?

(I'm not planning to smuggle anything through that I shouldn't, I just can't bear the thought of someone raking though my dirty washing!)

[Buenchico]

Calculations for shipping (using �1 = $2 as a rough approximation):

HMRC start by working out the Import Duty. For metal ornaments, this is zero. For ceramic items, it will be in the range 3.5% to 6%

Thus duty = zero (metal) or roughly between �3 and �5 (ceramic).

Then VAT (17.5%) is calculated. This is charged on the item, on the carriage and (if appropriate) on the duty. (You pay tax on a tax!). This will work out at around �24.

There's then an �8 examination fee to be added.

So the total cost of the item, with shipping, etc will be �85 (purchase price) + �50 (carriage) + �5? (duty) + �24 (VAT) + �8 (examination fee) = �172 (or about a fiver less if it's metal).

If you bring the item back yourself:

You're allowed to bring back �145 worth of goods and souvenirs, without paying duty or VAT. So, if you don't have more than �60 worth of additional goods, you won't have to pay any charges (except possibly for excess baggage on the plane!). You could also use the green channel at the airport.

If you've already used up your �145 allowance, and the ornament is an additional import, you'll pay between �0 and �5 duty (as above), plus around �15 VAT. You'd have to use the red channel at the airport. HMRC might take the opportunity to take a cursory look through your bags but it's unlikely that they'd carry out a detailed search.

So, as long as you don't incur very high excess baggage charges, it would be better to bring the ornament back yourself.

Chris

[xanderma]

Wow, what a great and detailed reply! Thank you so much for your advice, I did ask my friend who's a Customs Officer, but couldn't get anything like a straight answer from her!

I'll bring it home myself, we're flying with Virgin and their baggage allowance is very generous, we never come close to it.

Thanks again.