Import duty and vat

[hmtiling]

Hello all.
I bought some bits from Alibaba that at the time seemed like a bargain. I've now received an invoice from tnt for £151. I've no experience of import duty but it seems a bit steep. So value of goods was $228 and shipping was $188. Can anyone tell me if this is correct please?
Cheers people

 

[Concrete guy]

VAT is fixed, it's 20% and is payable on the item + shipping cost at the prevailing exchange rate for the day the duty invoice was processed. If you're VAT registered you can reclaim this bit.

The items will be given a commodity code that will determine the amount of import duty that's payable over and above VAT. This bit can't be reclaimed.

You can search for them here:- Finding commodity codes for import and export duty - GOV.UK - https://www.gov.uk/finding-commodity-codes

Couriers are notorious for picking random commodity codes, if it is wrong you can appeal the invoice and provide them with the correct code/s for the items and ask for the figures to be amended.

 

[WetSaw]

I used to import and export motorcycles. The duty depends what goods they are and where they're from. There's lots of different rates of duty. I assume that the £151 includes VAT? You can obviously claim that back if you're registered.
It's often better if they invoice the "sample" or "gift" they are sending you correctly

 

[Chalker]

I imported an RV from America a few years ago
Import duty was put onto the total cost. This was the cost I paid for the vehicle, the cost of transporting it to the port, the cost of shipping on the boat and the insurance.
This was added up and charged 10% import tax. Then vat was added to the total at 20%.
In reality you pay tax on tax!

 

[One Day]

tax is great though! just think of all the stuff it pays for...!

I love paying tax!

 

[hmtiling]

After looking through the Chinese paperwork it seems like i've paid $188 for shipping to supplier then supplier has passed the shipping costs to me by inflating the purchase price to that of product cost plus shipping. I think!