Page 1 of foot and mouth!

does anyone else think that our customs and excise are a f*****g joke?
isnt it about time they got their priorites in order?! instead of stitching up the public with scandalous charges for importing goods (like dvds), surely they should be re-thinking their policies on the importing of cattle.......

What a load of bull!

True say. Its not like we`re smugglers or are gonna sell them at inflated prices over here we just want to enjoy them at home. We are not getting them at wholesale or anything. We pay a good price its not that much cheaper a few quid maybe

Going to stick my neck out here and say I think import duty is actually fair, it only hits items above a certain price (think its £18 or something) and is a fact of life for any person in any country.

If you buy something from abroad you are taking money away from your government which needs to take a percentage of that money to ensure roads are maintained, the health service can look after you when your ill, etc, etc.

So import duty is just their way of recouping some of the loss. I`d rather it was set at a higher level of say £50, but I think its as much as £36 for presents but don`t quote me on that.

Anyhow, I`ve never payed import duty since every disc I`ve bought has been sent singly so not been subject to costs. ;-)

>>If you buy something from abroad you are taking money away from your government which needs to take a percentage of that money to ensure roads are maintained, the health service can look after you when your ill, etc, etc.

I think there are enough taxes for health service and the like and as for road maintenance I`m sure the crazy tax on petrol more than covers for it not to mention road tax of course.
Nah I think they probably spend import tax on more useful things such as the Millennium Dome and dodgy bridges that won`t stop wobbling when more that one person steps onto it.

007.

Frankly I think the problem isn`t so much import duty and VAT (which, like Robert I think is fair although I`d also rather see it charged on goods over a value of £50 than the present system), but the fact that someone has the power to have packages addressed to me opened and can impound the contents if the whim takes him/her.

You can bet packages are opened on a quota system, and somebody bucking for promotion will investigate more packages than they should. I suspect something like that is happening at Mt.Pleasant sorting office, as more packages are coming through with the HMC&E stamp on them than before.

And let`s not forget that HMC&E will cooperate fully with outfits like FACT and the BVA, who`d rather we didn`t buy our DVDs from Region 1.