I recently got a box full of wonderful looking cheapass games, unfortunately our nefarious UK postal service charged me an downright unsatisfying £8 ($15ish) for the pleasure of having to driving to a nearby town to pick up my now delayed parcel: harrumph! I got knobbled by domestic tax (around £6), not entirely unreasonable as, for all their faults, the government do pay my wage. However, as I hadn't paid the tax on purchase, the post office held on to it until this was done.
I'm not much upset by the tax, being long enough in the tooth to be resigned to these things, but if there was a way of paying it at your end I could avoid paying these over-nourished postal charges.
Cheers for the package of games by the way, much appreciated.
Hugh
hughsimpson wrote: I recently got a box full of wonderful looking cheapass games, unfortunately our nefarious UK postal service charged me an downright unsatisfying £8 ($15ish) for the pleasure of having to driving to a nearby town to pick up my now delayed parcel: harrumph! I got knobbled by domestic tax (around £6), not entirely unreasonable as, for all their faults, the government do pay my wage. However, as I hadn't paid the tax on purchase, the post office held on to it until this was done.
I'm not much upset by the tax, being long enough in the tooth to be resigned to these things, but if there was a way of paying it at your end I could avoid paying these over-nourished postal charges.
Cheers for the package of games by the way, much appreciated.
Hugh
Hi Hugh:
Unfortunately, we have no way to deal with international taxes and tarrifs from our end. We try to do our best to make it as painless as possible, but dealing with locals governments is beyond even our super powers to overcome. Glad you liked the games!
-Lisa
hughsimpson wrote: I recently got a box full of wonderful looking cheapass games, unfortunately our nefarious UK postal service charged me an downright unsatisfying £8 ($15ish) for the pleasure of having to driving to a nearby town to pick up my now delayed parcel: harrumph! I got knobbled by domestic tax (around £6), not entirely unreasonable as, for all their faults, the government do pay my wage. However, as I hadn't paid the tax on purchase, the post office held on to it until this was done.
I'm not much upset by the tax, being long enough in the tooth to be resigned to these things, but if there was a way of paying it at your end I could avoid paying these over-nourished postal charges.
Cheers for the package of games by the way, much appreciated.
Hugh
Hugh, this happened to me as well the other week. Royal Mail has indeed introduced additional "handling charges" of £8 for any package that they hold for customs pending your payment of import VAT. Like you, I don't mind paying the import duty - comes with the territory after all - but the extra £8 on top of that is a bit much.
I did some research into the subject and it turns out that customs will only charge import VAT on packages with a value of £18 or more (about $35). Only packages of that value or more will be held up pending your payment of the import VAT and thus also incur the extra £8 handling charge.
So while there's not much that Paizo are able to do from their end, if you are able to keep the value of your shipments below the $35 threshold, you should avoid both the import VAT and the Royal Mail handling charges. Although bundling several items together may seem like a good way to save on postage from the USA, in practice it can turn out to be counterproductive as the import VAT and handling charge can soon outstrip any savings that you might make on the postage. Plus Paizo's cool new lower international shipping charges mean that you don't take such a big hit when ordering several smaller packages instead of one larger one :-)
I suspect that the customs people don't catch every single package valued above $35, as one or two do seem to have slipped through the net, but it's best not to take the chance of the added charges imho. I recently split a couple of my preorders into smaller packages to avoid getting scalped by the Royal Mail and Paizo have been very helpful in getting this sorted out.
A thousand curses on the postal service, just you wait till I dig up my very own Shoggoth, then they'll pay; then you'll all pay!
Sorry, what was I saying? Ah, yes, my sympathies on you limited superpowers; I too suffer from the same limitations: I know your pain.
Regarding the lower limits for taxing (£18, or £36 for gifts) I noticed something to this effect on the box, but thought these where for import duty. If this applies to VAT also, then our good people at the border have been somewhat naughty, as my box is marked as a 'gift' and valued at $61, around £32.
Still, vagrancy of the institutions of my land aside, thanks for the advice I may yet have to remonstrate with the custodians of these shores!
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