Buying from Penn State

[Penfold]

Hi

Can anyone help please, what is the limit I can spend before having to pay VAT and other charges, when buying from Penn State?

Thanks
David

 

[Penpal]

First check if Penn State sell to the UK difficult to deal with IMHO better through their dealers I have heard Good luck..

Peter.

 

[silver]

Anything you buy above £18 will be liable for VAT and import duties when entering the uK.

You will also be charged an standard £8 handling charge from the post office, but depends on who they use for international postage, if the use fed ex then it will be dealt direct from them, any other mail provider tends to use the post office when it land to the uk.

Bear in mind that anything above the threshold will be liable for VAT (20%) and import taxes (8%) plus handling fees and the original postage charges.

In my opinion, if you base the $ as advertised! that is what you will usually end up paying in £ when it enters the uk.

In short, advertised at $10 then you will end up paying £10.

Hope this helps.

 

[Neil]

David,
Additionally you can get caught for import tax. This is an amount between 3 and 9% based on the classification of the goods. This tax can be payable if the order value exceeds £135. Pen parts should get the lower charge of 3% but you are at the whim of the customs assessor. This tax is applied to the value of the goods and the vat then charged on the purchase and import tax value.

Jim from pencrafts.co.uk is a psi dealer and is based in Glasgow. Depending on what you are after you might be better off asking him to get them in for you as he will be paying the taxes as well but at a lower rate. The psi postage charges are very high but I only tried to buy direct from them once so they might have changed. The staff at psi are about as much helpful as an phillipines call centre and fail to acknowledge that the world is round and that there are bits of the world that aren't called America.

 

[paulm]

Anything you buy above £18 will be liable for VAT and import duties when entering the uK.

You will also be charged an standard £8 handling charge from the post office, but depends on who they use for international postage, if the use fed ex then it will be dealt direct from them, any other mail provider tends to use the post office when it land to the uk.

Bear in mind that anything above the threshold will be liable for VAT (20%) and import taxes (8%) plus handling fees and the original postage charges.

In my opinion, if you base the $ as advertised! that is what you will usually end up paying in £ when it enters the uk.

In short, advertised at $10 then you will end up paying £10.

Hope this helps.

That is exactly how I calculate what things are going to cost when buying in dollars. rule of thumb $1 = £1 and its never far wrong.

 

[Grump]

That is exactly how I calculate what things are going to cost when buying in dollars. rule of thumb $1 = £1 and its never far wrong.

Same as that Paul, I don't think it's far out at all.
If you get away with less you have had a result init?
A friend went to the states to live, jokingly I said send me a 1950's Cadillac Deville, he did he said they are junk out there and he paid very little for it.
He didn't pay the shipping charges or taxes on it, by the time all the charges were put on it I couldn't afford to get it.
I did get invited to the auction when customs sold it, which was interesting to watch some loony bid an arm and leg for it.

 

[Anthraquinone]

You also need to watch the postage. I wanted to buy 10 cocobolo pen blanks for about $17 but when I tried to check out I got this message

U.S.P.S. Priority Mail® International ($50.45) 3-5 weeks delivery

Priority Mail at 3 - 5 weeks !!!! . Postage $50 !!!!!!!!. Needless to say I did not complete the order.!!!

AQ

 

[Neil]

You also need to watch the postage. I wanted to buy 10 cocobolo pen blanks for about $17 but when I tried to check out I got this message

U.S.P.S. Priority Mail® International ($50.45) 3-5 weeks delivery

Priority Mail at 3 - 5 weeks !!!! . Postage $50 !!!!!!!!. Needless to say I did not complete the order.!!!

AQ

Welcome to the forum, the fifty dollar rate is for a medium flat rate box, for those number of blanks you should have been able to get away with a small flat rate envelope, provided that, as would be the case here, that the total weight was less than four pounds.

As a matter of interest, why we're you buying cocobolo from the states?

 

[Anthraquinone]

Welcome to the forum, the fifty dollar rate is for a medium flat rate box, for those number of blanks you should have been able to get away with a small flat rate envelope, provided that, as would be the case here, that the total weight was less than four pounds.

As a matter of interest, why we're you buying cocobolo from the states?

10 blanks for $17 say about £1 each seemed reasonable and I was also thinking about some pen kits as well but checked the postage after ordering only the cocobolo. Are you implying that I can get cocobolo blanks in the UK for £1 each ?? The ones I have seen in the UK are about 2 - 3 times the price.

I was not offered any option on the postage other than the $50 rate. Do you know if you can request a cheaper rate from them?


AQ

 

[Neil]

If you want to buy stuff from psi, go via woodturningzcom . Phone them up and speak to a human, the humans that they employee at psi aren't exactly out of the top drawer. I buy $250 a time and pay about $25 including insurance. Three quarter square cocobolo from exotichardwoodsukltd, fourteen inches long are four pounds fifty which means it's quite cheap as you can cut it to length and get virtually no waste.

 

[Penpal]

Trust it works out for you interested your final choices.

Peter.