HMS Priapus' Flying Bridge

[Shahbahraz]

is that one of the Baccus Shermans? It looks rather good. Especially under that level of magnification.

[HMS Priapus]

It is indeed, and thanks. It is actually much smoother IRL, that level of zoom is pretty unforgiving on the brushwork.

[BaronVonWreckedoften]

I have literally thousands of 6mm vehicles and infantry, but unfortunately, they are all in Oz.

Possibly taking social distancing a bit too far?

[Shahbahraz]

It's a long story. Left Oz to come back to the UK, wasn't sure how long I would be here for, and I didn't have a huge amount of time before starting a job here. So I left most of my wargames stash (27 years worth) with a friend.

Then when I shipped one army back, HMRC slapped me with £100 VAT and duty, treating it as a purchase from overseas. So I am not sure how to get the rest here without having hundreds if not thousands of pounds worth of HMRC charges.

[Essex Boy]

Needless to say, this got me juices flowing. I never got involved in the Customs side of things but paying VAT and duty in the circumstances described seems a bit iffy. At first.

Also needless to say, is that the HM Gov. guidance on the subject is mind numbingly difficult to find/follow/read. I blame the old Inland Revenue (long story). It seems there may be time limits on duty/VAT free imports of personal effects - depending on whether '12 months of entry' means entry of the person or entry of the effects. I've no idea.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... he-eu#sec4

HMRC's Helpline will be able to advise. One day.

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisat ... -enquiries

Good luck

Iain

[Shahbahraz]

It's 12 months. We got caught on that with all our personal effects. Because I hadn't lived in the UK for 27 year, I had no credit rating, so I couldn't purchase a house for a minimum of two years when I came back, ok, so we put all our household furniture, books etc in storage in Oz till we had a permanent place.

When we moved in to our house finally, we arranged for the household stuff to be shipped, And it got held in customs and we got charged - because it was more than 12 months after we moved, so the personal exclusion from import duties, VAT etc had expired.

I would have thought that Pickfords, being such experts, could have warned us, as if we had known we would have shipped straight from our place in Oz to a warehouse in the UK.

[Jeremy]

That is a bit shit. Our movers told us about that when we moved over here. In a similar vein house wise and we had put an offer in on a house and the valuers were going round the Monday after lockdown. So now it’s on hold. Indefinitely.

[Shahbahraz]

That sucks big-time. Hope it all works out for you. There is so much that has just suddenly halted, and I don't think anyone really has an idea of the full range of impacts,

[Essex Boy]

It's 12 months. We got caught on that with all our personal effects. Because I hadn't lived in the UK for 27 year, I had no credit rating, so I couldn't purchase a house for a minimum of two years when I came back, ok, so we put all our household furniture, books etc in storage in Oz till we had a permanent place.

When we moved in to our house finally, we arranged for the household stuff to be shipped, And it got held in customs and we got charged - because it was more than 12 months after we moved, so the personal exclusion from import duties, VAT etc had expired.

I would have thought that Pickfords, being such experts, could have warned us, as if we had known we would have shipped straight from our place in Oz to a warehouse in the UK.

Oh right, the person, not the effects. That seems rather harsh. I feel your pain.

[HMS Priapus]

This whole thing got me curious how it’s done over here. Apparently all your personal effects are dutiable but the duties are ‘usually waived’ if the personal effect(s) are over 12 months old. I could see some real slippage in the definition of the word ‘usually.’