Customs and VAT

If I was to purchase a empeg unit from a user in the forum, would UK customs still hit me for the relevant duties, if so is there a way round it.
Only asking as a recent post stated that customs wanted another 100GBP when it arrived in UK!!

jesus, i've ordered 2!
i hope they don't want that much off me.

In answer to your question if it gets intercepted you will probably pay less if it's sent as say a gift since there won't be a recipt in the box since it was a private purchase. Depends on what postage is used, with insured postage the value is acutally put on the outside of it which means you will get stung for more import duty.

Col H.

That was me! Customs used the wrong value to calculate the VAT and inport duties and are in the process of reimbursing me. But it's still over £50, so for 2 players you're looking at over a ton!

Andy M

ouch, ah well i had worked it out to be about 35 quid so it will only be 15 more.

luckily only one is mine. How much did you pay for your empeg unit since the import duty/VAT would be based on that i presume. I'm getting 2 players at a total of $600.

Col H.

I paid $300 for mine but I found out that customs use a fixed rate currency conversion system which changes from week to week. When I looked at it, the figures were slightly higher meaning they could sting me for a couple more quid.

The import duty also depends upon what kind of product it is, a car stereo is taxed at over 10% yet computers are taxed at about 4%. Try explaining that the empeg is in fact a very small linux based computer that happens to fit in a DIN slot and not strictly a car stereo to the girls who work on the customs call center,

"What do you mean you don't know what Linux is!?!?!!".

Hope you get as much fun out of your player I give got out of mine!

Cheers,

Andy M