Just a quickie on peoples experience. I'm looking to purchase some kits from the states and have been told I may get hammered with import taxes.

Has anyone from the UK ordered from overseas before?

What was your experience regarding the dreaded "Import Tax".?

How do they work this stuff out? Is it a percentage of the total value of the goods.?

Any advice on this one would be appreciated..

The amount is VAT (17.5%) plus import duty (5%) plus a collection fee charge by Royal Mail or Parcel force (whatever they feel like, generally £1 to £12)

Whether you get hit depends. If the value is less than $50 you're usually OK. Otherwise it's almost random.

Stuart

Cheers Stuart. So on a $170 order I'm looking around 22.5% Almost a quarter Hmmm not sure what to do now. Plenty of time to think about it while I repair credit credit balance ready to be nailed again lol.

NewHummer,

I've had mixed experiences buying from the States. Sometimes customs don't spot what the thing is (if the box is brown and anonymous enough) but generally they do and the rates are like Stuart says but the thing that get's me is the "handling charge" added by Parcelforce for giving me the privelege of the customs inspection. On a 1-2lb package this is almost always £8 and the lowest I've ever had has been £4.

To give you an example, I recently bought some spares for my LMH Corona helicopter from LMH/Shopatron in the States. The parts amounted to something like $52 but Shopatron added $25 for shipping (!!). So the price was up to something like $77. When this got to the UK the inevitable VAT and import was added. Up to $95 so far. Then there was this mysterious £8 ($12) "handling charge" added so the total was about $108 (or £70).

So if I lived in the States and could pop down to the LHS to buy some LMH parts I'd have paid $52 but for the joy of living in England I paid $108

Cliff

Derkum in Germany has normally all LMH Parts in stock, shipment in Europe is around 12 Euro normally.

I've found it's often worth looking to see if what I need is available somewhere in Europe. No extras to pay then apart from the shipping (which in my experience is often less than you get charged when buying mail order inside the UK).

For some reason I've often got away without VAT/Duty when buying from Canada (Great Hobbies usually) though parcels from the USA always seem to get spotted.

BTW for kits, check carefully what you will be charged for shipping. Physically large parcels can cost a colossal amount of money to ship from the States. I've seen shipping costs of more than the original kit price .

Steve

If at all possible, have them mark the parcel as a gift.
And shop Europe if you can!

But many nice things are only available in USA

I have a friend who purchases motorcycle parts from here (the US). He has them sent to me, then I send them to him (in Scotland) marked as a gift. It's worked for the last 10 years. It works out cheaper than paying all the fees.

Thanks to all for the replies the only problem is, The kits I want are from Doug at Mountain Models so I presume he doesn't have anyone else distributing his kits I was gonna order 3 kits together but now I may have to take 1 first and see what happens

Steve Wrona at http://www.eflightmodels.co.uk/ used to sell Mountain Models in the UK. However it does look from his website as though he's given up. I don't know if anyone else has taken over, have you asked Doug ?

Steve

http://www.eflightmodels.co.uk

Their prices aren't great given the exchange rate and they don't have all the kits but it's worth a try. Be warned though, if you order a SB, you may get the old version.

Actually, I ordered my SB and my Hobby Hangar from the US and they only cost me ~$18 each but maybe the customs guys are worse in the UK.

OTH my father ordered WinXP for $100 from the US and got whacked for $50 duty so maybe I've been lucky.

Matthew

EDIT: Whoops, Steve beat me to it. Take the risk!

I haven't asked Doug about that but have had a few pm's going back and forth. Checked out the link and only found the SB and the C-180. Only 1 model there I want out of the 3

May have to risk it

I have had a SB sport from www.eflightmodels.co.uk
but I may have had the last one.
I think that ordering kits from the US can be expensive(and also expensive for our US cousins going the other way)plus you may find them damaged.
From aircraft Dave in Japan is free of the pain of customs, VAT etc.etc.etc. ......usually!!

Ian

I had a kit from SR Batteries, and got copped for VAT and Import Duty. Furthermore, I had to collect it from the Post Office.
Conversely, I bought a Nemesis from Aerolock Models, which was delivered to my door and no charge was made. It seems to be a bit of a lottery. What I did notice was that the Nemesis box was clearly labelled 'Balsa Wood'. Maybe there's a clue here!

Brian