Overseas sellers claim that you can buy their, often very expensive, items and pay no tax. The say they will put GIFT on the shipping label.

This cuts no ice with Customs & Excise and you WILL have to pay out.

Customs duty is payable if the amount of duty is £7 or above; and VAT is payable if the value of the goods is £18 or above. These must be paid whether the goods are new or used, purchased by you or a gift from another; and whether they are for your private use or for sale.

The duties vary in sometimes baffling ways. For instance, all cameras attract VAT; but digital cameras are duty free, while a camcorder attracts duty at up to 14% and a film camera attracts duty at 4.9%. A laptop is duty free; but a PDA attracts 3.7% duty. And duty on a plasma or LCD screen is 14% if you can use it to watch TV, but duty free if it only takes a computer signal.

Furthermore you will also have to pay the delivery company a fee to collect these duties on behalf of Customs & Excise.

All of a sudden your bargain is becoming very expensive.

One other thing, people are often unaware that although the foreign sender may have completed the customs declaration form on the parcel, the buyer is regarded as the importer of the goods. If anyone purchases goods online and the declaration is found to be false or misleading they may be liable to financial penalties or criminal prosecution and the goods themselves will be liable to forfeiture.

So if you take adavantage of the 'mark as a gift' auction items you may end up in jail and very, very poor.

If you have found this guide useful please help others to see it by clicking the YES button below. Your vote is for this guide alone and not for all of the guides I have written.