I'm not sure what your options are. If you don't pay the tax, you won't be able to take receipt of your order and will probably lose the bulk of your £75.I had a Magura throttle sent from Optibike and I paid £75 inc postage and
now I have another tax and duty from fed ex for £29.00 and should I pay it ?
You will often find on small import purchases that most of the charge goes to the courier as their "fee" for collecting tax..from experience I know DHL and Fedex both charge a £15 customs clearance/VAT deferment fee.I had a Magura throttle sent from Optibike and I paid £75 inc postage and
now I have another tax and duty from fed ex for £29.00 and should I pay it ?
Yes you're right Steve it's a bummer to get hit with what is basically a 30% extra cost on your purchase. As you said, for small items like this the best thing to do is to ask the seller to mark it as a "gift" or "sample" of no commercial value, if they're willing.I get the throttle 2 weeks before the fed ex tax bill and I presume this is a vat bill collected by them and a £10 processing charge for sending me the bill wat a joke! Optibike should of sent it as a gift and valued at a £10
I can imagine anyone buying an Optibike from the usa for $12000 would get stung with a £1200.00 fed ex tax bill WOW
I agree Jerry, but I think certain goods which promote a cleaner environment and economy and in which the UK doesn't have any real manufacturing presence, should be given special low-tax treatment. Also the ebike industry is still an emerging industry in the UK with many small businesses who build and sell bikes completely dependent on overseas manufacturers for parts and batteries. If the UK wants to start fostering more British-based manufacturers of ebikes and parts, batteries etc, they need to start providing government incentives and finance. We could lead the world in this regard with our engineering and technological excellence, if only the government stepped up and created the right environment.
I can't see how that would work as most are lazy in the UK rather sit on the dole moaning and shop liftinging as a hobby round here anyway.. and we would charge more tax here if the tax went up abroad and all the big company's open factories in china like NIKE and Dyson so we dont get the jobs or the tax benefits anyway!
Steve you have a point there..the whole business environment is screwed up in the UK, it pushes business overseas where taxes and manufacturing costs are lower. We either have to accept that reality and accept we can't compete with these overseas factories, or just reject the free open market economy system of trade and start fostering and protecting British manufacturing. I don't see how the two approaches can work together. In anycase, I definitely think ebikes is a special category and needs special preferential treatment as far as tax is concerned. It's good for everyone, the businesses in UK, the environment, end customers, and the industry as a whole.
Totally agree, there's some great deals over the pond and the strength of the pound gives us a lot of buying power..But the thing which always kills any deal is the damn US shipping charges, I always wondered why they used UPS and other couriers over Airmail. Now I know why.
