Customs When Back To The UK

[clairelovesorlando]

Hi Guys
Do you no how much excess you have to pay after your £145 per person I thought it was about £25 per £100 is this right.
Thanks Claire

 

[AndRu]

I don't know the exact answer to the question but ... I have never, ever on ANY journey back to Blighty seen a customs officer! That's not to say they're not there, they maybe watching discreetly via CCTV but everyone just piles through the green channel.

 

[UKDEB]

It's not a flat amount, it depends on the value of the goods in question. I don't think it's particularly straight forward, either.

 

[JohnnySharp2]

It is not straightforward at all, if you have the Brit's Guide see page 292.

 

[patdavies]

It's not straightforward, as it is not an excess as such, but duty (which has a variable rate deoending on the classification of the item) and VAT (17.5%)

 

[Mrs Dazzle]

I thought I'd read that you don't just pay excess on what's over your £145 limit, but on the WHOLE amount.

Just be careful, unless you want to cough up a large amount of money; we know how easy it is to shop - oh, and the customs officers ARE there.

 

[mikki.young]

You only pay on the excess. We always go through the red channel as it is virtually impossible to spend less than £145 each! We list by category where we can - clothes, shoes, DVDs, books (usually a good one as they don't charge for these) and other. If you go through green and get caught then you will becharged maximum rates on everything. If you go through red it is very variable. Sometimes just a straight 17.5%, sometimes a 'composite' rate of 22.5%, sometimes they say thank you for being honest and let you through free and sometimes it is 20 questions! As we prefer to be honest and law abiding we go through red.

 

[Girlsontour]

I've got no idea what you are on about £145 - sorry officer, i didn't realise it was only that amount

 

[JohnnySharp2]

I've got no idea what you are on about £145 - sorry officer, i didn't realise it was only that amount

I am with you...and honestly I really do not take the tags off anything I buy either.

 

[AndRu]

Go on then Mr Customs officer - prove I bought that Mickey Mouse shirt over there instead of in a Disney Store here .... OK, you've got me on the NASA jacket!

I think we all "prefer to be honest and law abiding" but seeing as it takes 18-24 months to save up for each Orlando trip, I'm not going to volunteer to give Gordon Brown any more money than he currently siphons out of my salary.

[tangent]Without wanting to get into a political debate, any country that concentrates on prosecuting/taxing it's citizens for spending their own money abroad while opening its borders to economic migrants, is headed in the wrong direction.[/tangent]

 

[Scrap_Vamp]

In May we declared and they did all sorts of calculations - it finally came out at about £45 to pay for being about £300 over. With the savings we had made, this didn't seem like very much.

We also didn't declare our photos from DC and our Disney Photopass CD, as these were $200 in total alone. I believe if we hadn't declared and got caught going through the green channel, these sorts of things are all taken into consideration then.

 

[patdavies]

books (usually a good one as they don't charge for these) and other.

This becasue books attract 0% duty and printed matter is zero-rated for VAT

 

[Ali and boyz]

if it is any help we bought my son a Tonga rugby top from America think it was roughly $140 and we got stung for nearly £50 here in the UK

 

[paulh]

whats tax and vat
Paulh

 

[castanea1985]

We once went through 'Red' in 1992, and had a terrible experience. My DH had a golf club that he'd bought second hand here in the UK, and the customs officer was adamant that it had been bought in the USA. My poor DH could hardly speak, the bloke was down right rude. We only went through 'Red' to declare a computer hard drive that he had bought whilst we were there. I can't remember what we eventually paid for the computer hardware, but it was negligible. It was the way we were treated, that was disgusting.
We will never go through 'red' again, and to be honest, we hardly ever see any customs officers when we get back, these days.
Tracy

 

[matty624]

You only pay on the excess. We always go through the red channel as it is virtually impossible to spend less than £145 each! We list by category where we can - clothes, shoes, DVDs, books (usually a good one as they don't charge for these) and other. If you go through green and get caught then you will becharged maximum rates on everything. If you go through red it is very variable. Sometimes just a straight 17.5%, sometimes a 'composite' rate of 22.5%, sometimes they say thank you for being honest and let you through free and sometimes it is 20 questions! As we prefer to be honest and law abiding we go through red.

I'm sorry, I tend to class myself as pretty law abiding, but would never consider going through the red channel. Not unless we'd bought something which was really obviously bought in the US, e.g. the hard drive castanea1985 mentioned. We even bought a radio controlled model car last year! In 10 trips to the US, we have NEVER seen a customs official when flying back into Manchester, although as previously said, they are probably there, somewhere!
That said, we'll probably get stopped this summer when we land in Glasgow.
Oh, as an added precaution, often take receipt photocopies of high value items we take with us, e.g. our very expensive panny camcoder, and digital cameras. Coz you never know!!!!
Ian

 

[homerdog]

You only pay on the excess.

If you bring in something worth more than the limit of £145, you must pay charges on the full value, not just the value above £145. For example, if the only thing you bought was a laptop, and it cost £500, you would be charged on the whole amount.

It's also not up to the Customs Officer to prove the provenance of any item - that's your responsibility in law.

Lots of people take a chance by heading through the green channel when coming back from Florida, based on the reasonable assumption that Customs Officers have bigger fish to fry. The only advice I can give is that if you get stopped, answer any questions truthfully, they've probably heard all the excuses a hundred times!

 

[kylie]

Remember Browns "I'll ask if I can make the allowence £1000" budget prelection
speach. When will we realise that Labour speaks with forked tongue

 

[Amyrlin]

We have always seen customs offiers at Gatwick, however wee have notied they tend to pick on the single people.

 

[gavvy]

coming through customes in May at gatwick I had to smile and laugh at the lady that had 1000 bensons on the table with a customs officer writing out a reciept.
I think someone must have seen me though as the next thing I get the dreaded hand on my trolly and asked where I was flying from!

Thankfully when I said Orlando they let me on my way, I dident have anything that I should not have had but even so it makes you worried!

So a lesson- Dont Gloat at the unfortunate like me, as they are watching!