Admin fee for paying import taxes.

[greg]

Hello.

 

Just got an order from WGC & had to pay £8 tax & a £13.50 handling charge for calculation & payment of taxes.

 

I have no problem with paying tax, or what seems to me, a fair administration fee.

 

I just wondered if there was an alternative way to calculate & pay the tax, yourself, directly. Cutting out the middleman so as to speak.

 

 

Greg.

[Libris]

Hello.

 

Just got an order from WGC & had to pay £8 tax & a £13.50 handling charge for calculation & payment of taxes.

 

I have no problem with paying tax, or what seems to me, a fair administration fee.

 

I just wondered if there was an alternative way to calculate & pay the tax, yourself, directly. Cutting out the middleman so as to speak.

 

 

Greg.

 

Not as far as I am aware. The thieving *mongoose herds* have it well tied up. TNT have an eye watering £15 admin charge - easy money. In most cases more than the VAT and not far off what it actually costs to post the bloody thing ahalf way around the world. It's also in their interest to make sure you go through customs - TNT haven't missed an opportunity to rip me off yet. It's great for them - money from the poster and the postee - it's a win-win for them.

 

Oh look plural *mongoose herds* gets through the filter...

[PSK89]

I have heard through a mate that it is possible if you can be bothered to avoid the charge with parcelforce.

 

Not sure how but basically you weren't given the option or notification to pay the tax, first you hear is after parcelforce bill you having paid it off and added their fee. What should happen is that you pay the tax directly to customs who then release the package to parcelforce to be delivered as you have already paid the shipping fees.

 

At the end of the day what annoys me most is that often the tax is less that the £13.50 fee charged.

[Andrew March]

The laws on importing goods into the UK state that the customs broker (parcelforce) must inform you in advance of any charges, you then have to either agree or pay to have the item cleared yourself.

 

It is illegal for a courier to charge you a fee without advising you first what that fee is. Apparently you can complain and I have heard of some people getting away with it but I have also heard of other people having their parcels sent back to where they came from.

[Aitch]

TNT charged me a whopping fee 2 years ago, i complained and demanded they reassess the bill, i was told they would get back to me, they never did

I still expect a tax bill though sometime in the future from HMRC, we'll see.

[Panoptes]

TNT charged me a whopping fee 2 years ago, i complained and demanded they reassess the bill, i was told they would get back to me, they never did

I still expect a tax bill though sometime in the future from HMRC, we'll see.

 

Charging handling fees is illegal, I'll bet. They've already been paid to import your item.

 

Class Action required.

[Roskov]

Charging handling fees is illegal, I'll bet. They've already been paid to import your item.

 

Class Action required.

 

Really? so they should do the work of clearing it trough customs for free?

Yes it has been paid to transport from A to B, but not all items they transport are required to be taxed/vat thingy.

So it's an extra job for them.

 

In Norway i know you can do the customs/tax/vat thingy yourself, so im sure Britain has the same thing aswell.

check with your local customs office or "google it"

[Ionic Gorilla]

The laws on importing goods into the UK state that the customs broker (parcelforce) must inform you in advance of any charges, you then have to either agree or pay to have the item cleared yourself.

 

It is illegal for a courier to charge you a fee without advising you first what that fee is. Apparently you can complain and I have heard of some people getting away with it but I have also heard of other people having their parcels sent back to where they came from.

On the telephone last Wednesday I got all the way up to the Parcel Farce MDs office only to be told that:

 

1. they don't have the information to provide a breakdown of the fee

 

and then when I said that if they didn't have the information how did they know that the fee was correct; somebody had to have worked it out I was told

 

2. it's commercially confidential information and we're not going to give it to you.

 

So they want me to pay the fee, but wont provide me with a breakdown of how the fee was calculated...

 

 

[Libris]

Charging handling fees is illegal, I'll bet. They've already been paid to import your item.

 

No they haven't. they have been paid to transport it to your address. Import duties are your responsibilty and the handling fee is charged handling the import duty and taxes and not as an addition to the carriage. They do have the right to levy a charge under some government legislation.

[Hammerfall]

It has been 1 year since i had an importing spree, using TNT as the courier. I bought a lot of stuff and their bills came through the door - it amounted to £300-ish.

 

1 year later, i've never paid them - i used TNT again last week to get a package through from HK. Got my letter for £30, which i will pay.

 

So, i phone TNT up and ask how much i owe. Their answer? We don't know, just wait 'til you get a letter - you'll get one at the start of every month - which we haven't.

[greg]

So,,,,,,,,,,,, does any one have the answer to my original question? Post#1 paragraph 3.

 

 

Greg.

[Hammerfall]

So,,,,,,,,,,,, does any one have the answer to my original question? Post#1 paragraph 3.

 

 

Greg.

 

There isn't... i don't think

[Libris]

There isn't... i don't think

 

What he said.

 

So realistically, no. Unless you can set up an independent international courier service to rival TNT or parcel force.

 

[Chimpy]

http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalW...tyType=document

 

HMRC take on it all.

[greg]

Ok, thanks.

 

Again, I actually think £13.50 is a reasonable price. Even if all they do, is press a few buttons, it has to be done & they are running a business.

 

I just figured wondered how the system works & if there was an alternative.

 

 

Greg.

[Hammerfall]

I'm going to stick my neck out and say that TNT have given me the least problems as far as couriers are concerned - they do offer a high standard of service.

 

 

 

 

[PSK89]

Ok, thanks.

 

Again, I actually think £13.50 is a reasonable price. Even if all they do, is press a few buttons, it has to be done & they are running a business.

 

I just figured wondered how the system works & if there was an alternative.

 

 

Greg.

 

 

Is it? Think about when you have been charged a handling fee and then postage handling fee is maybe 2 pound? and that requires someone to find the item you ordered get a box maybe throw in some bubble wrap seal the box stick on a label and off it goes to the post office.

 

Compare that to parcelforce. Realistically the fee you pay in tax covers the running of the operation of the customs unit at the airport or whatever! Once a package has been assessed it goes onto a cage and is left with the other international packages which will then be picked up the same as ALL other air mail then it goes to a sorting centre same as ALL the other packages!

 

So really all that happens is maybe some guy on the customs side or parcel force sits and scans the labels on the packages adds the tax value which can go onto a automated letter which is then sent to you.

 

Cost of a A4 print colour tops 5p? enevelope say 10p? Won't require a stamp id imagine so other than that it takes less that 20 minutes for someone to process the the information for the letter and to then double check the system for incomming payments and tick it off for delivery. Other than that the system is the same for a normal package not really worth £13.50 in my eyes if they detailed why we are charged this which they should really do as a company owned by the public.

[greg]

1, Is it?

 

2, Think, etc.

1, Yes.

 

2, Wake up.

 

What do you reckon Parcel Force's hourly rate is, when the local Ford dealer is between £50 & £100? No, not the minimum wage they give the postee, but how much it costs PF, to employ him & the infrastructure around him. You include the cost of a bit of paper, but forget the cost of the printer, the desk it stands on, the designer who drew up the format, the printers who produced the blank document, the legal team who checked that it was credible, the software designer who made it compatible with their existing systems, a consultant to cover health & safety & EU legislation, 3 cups of tea, a bacon sandwich & the ongoing checks to make sure that it is still current, etc, etc. You talk about some magical cage but forget to include it's cost, or that of the building it sits in & the square footage it occupies, which has to be paid for, 24/7, even when empty! This is the tip of the ice burg, calculating all the business cost's, associated with the 30 seconds it takes for them to answer the phone, probably covers more than the piffling £13.50, they charged me.

 

It amazes me, that they don't slap a £50 minimum charge on anything they do, that is beyond the normal remit of the business. Ie, delivery. Tax is an entirely different process, one which takes operational resource, which has to be paid for. It took the guy behind the counter about 5 minutes to process my details, take my money & fetch the parcel, (pretty slick, I thought) how much do you think, just that bit, cost the business? Someone had to put the parcel to one side & log it in, they had to store it, securely, for 9 days until I turned up to collect & pay. The tax had to be calculated & forwarded to the appropriate dept. Even if this is administered by efficient hi tech systems, it costs! These costs have to be covered & then you have to pay TAXES, & usually make a bit of profit. On which, you pay some more tax.

 

Nothing costs nothing, try & run a legit credible business for yourself. Even if it's just you & a pen & paper, you'll need a few grand (depending on weather you'll settle for minimum wage ) to make it worth while. Even if I place my own business's cost on this (comparatively small, £25 - £35ph) , I would be hard pressed to beat the £13.50 charge made by Parcel Facre. I would have to complete all work necessary in less than half an hour. Christ, it'll take me longer than that, to log onto the HMRC web site It's totally understandable if you don't 'get' this, but it is, how it is.

 

I'm sorry we have different opinions on this, I just recognise the cost of doing business & don't expect anything, for nothing.

 

 

Greg.

[PSK89]

Without getting into a slagging match you make some good points I understand there are charges overheads to be made and it is within reason a non-profit making company so if they can back up there charges with facts I would not disagree.

 

To say that the cost is £13.50 for the costs of cages the programme to make a letter is somewhat of base in my opinion. The cost for that part of the operation should be recovered from postal charges a holding fee fair enough if you are late in paying off the tax charges but i pay mine off as soon as i am aware of them. My only thought i can draw is that the price is set as a blanket rate to cover the additional costs of the few who don't pay up the amount of work to return the package is significant and the fee has to be drawn from somewhere.

 

You seem to know a bit about buisness but lets not forget parcelforce and royal mail are a lot larger than your average company and are in a competitive market with private companies trying to compete for buisness aim is to have reduced costs. I will pick parcelforce/royal mail almost everytime mostly cause they are local and are fair with the postal costs just something doesn't seem right about the charge you have to pay but i usually budget this in before placing a order and if it doesn't get stopped then all the better.

 

 

[greg]

Without getting into a slagging match you make some good points I understand there are charges overheads to be made and it is within reason a non-profit making company so if they can back up there charges with facts I would not disagree.

 

To say that the cost is £13.50 for the costs of cages the programme to make a letter is somewhat of base in my opinion. The cost for that part of the operation should be recovered from postal charges a holding fee fair enough if you are late in paying off the tax charges but i pay mine off as soon as i am aware of them. My only thought i can draw is that the price is set as a blanket rate to cover the additional costs of the few who don't pay up the amount of work to return the package is significant and the fee has to be drawn from somewhere.

 

You seem to know a bit about buisness but lets not forget parcelforce and royal mail are a lot larger than your average company and are in a competitive market with private companies trying to compete for buisness aim is to have reduced costs. I will pick parcelforce/royal mail almost everytime mostly cause they are local and are fair with the postal costs just something doesn't seem right about the charge you have to pay but i usually budget this in before placing a order and if it doesn't get stopped then all the better.

You have some well made, good points there. Thank you.

 

I agree, the charge is a 'flat rate', which will have to include the cost of storage for all & even the return of some products.

 

Smaller business are usually a lot easier to keep 'lean', than larger cooperations. Even in a competitive environment, as you grow, you either invest in more control (additional cost) or run the risk of loosing it (again, additional cost).

 

 

Greg.

[1st_shooter]

Parcelforce do include a notice with your payment letter if i remember correctly stating if you want to complain about the charge for whatever reason please ring this number or write etc but you must pay it before you can complain otherwise you probobly wont see your item for a long time

 

I dont mind a charge but just like Bank charges they are reletive to the actual level of work required. Its not even a standard charge its a minimum charge depending on value and seems to get higher based on the level of customs fees they pay. Which is understandable as they are forking out there own cash to save me time on my end which would be a great service if they didnt rip you off in the process. My last bill was about £37 Customers and the total was about £63 with the PF clearence fee added!

[Libris]

To be honest, considering that most courier services at least have to do some work for their money the £13.50 that Parcel Force charge and the £15 from TNT aren' over the top - just, unexpected. I personally don't think that it is unreasonable, unwanted yes, but not out of order.

 

Unlike bank charges which is, as far as I can tell, a completely automated money making machine.

[Rob15]

I dont mind a charge but just like Bank charges they are reletive to the actual level of work required. Its not even a standard charge its a minimum charge depending on value and seems to get higher based on the level of customs fees they pay. Which is understandable as they are forking out there own cash to save me time on my end which would be a great service if they didnt rip you off in the process. My last bill was about £37 Customers and the total was about £63 with the PF clearence fee added!

The Parcel Force fee should be £13.50, chances are the difference is Duty which neither the Gov or Parcel Force get a penny of!

 

The fee is actually higher for parcels sent by EMS Speedpost though, if its sent by EMS its £13.50 and standard airmail gets charged as £8.50 (iirc) flat rate regardless of the value of the parcel, as a result I opt for standard airmail whenever I can, EMS only saves 1 day on delivery time, costs more and if it gets taxed will cost more on clearing fee.

[amateurstuntman]

I've got a £300 parcel on the way.

I know it has a £13.50 charge on it, I know it has 10% duty on it and 17.5%VAT on the value and the postage.

I know to within £10 what the charges will be.

 

 

I knew what it would be when I bought the stuff and I knew it would still be cheaper than ordering it here.

 

So I did.

 

If it would have been dearer I would have bought it here.

 

So what have I got to complain about?

 

Nothing.

[1st_shooter]

Oh right i have never seen the breakdown i just assume it was customs + pf charge isnt so bad afterall really.

 

The last 2 parcels i got valued at £300 came in at £60/65 each