Shipping robots over seas!!!

[anukhet]

No...
When you say ship their bots over too it is in the literal sense - on the X-channel ferry with the robots in the back of the van

Audrey. The UK is a part of the European community, with a reasonably free trade in goods.

As Karoline says, the robot is in the back of the car, or several robots stashed in Leos van. No import duty , no VAT. Just personal non commercial goods transported.

Also, even when checked at the customs, the Belgians, nor the Dutch will have long delays if Robot wars is mentioned. One of the most of the reactions is Oh, when is it on TV again?

Ive spent an hour on the phone to the uk HMRC and got the normal Bureaucracy run around and pass on to the next officer and so on...
I dont know if its a matter of the import branch of the logistics company screwed up and the U.S. office is trying to cover for them or if the HMRC are just going thru the motions and the shipper doesnt care cause they get paid either way. But its hard to get answers when I may be asking the wrong people the wrong questions! unfortunately the UK branch Paid the fee and forwarded the bill to our office and they gave it to me and after my second phone conversation with her, she basicly said if she needs to talk to me she would email me and that I needed to pay the bill....NOW!!!

Geoff I will Email you, Thanks

Matt

[babeth]

May it console you, the last company I worked for regulary ships to outside the EU and we discovered that Russia is the worst of all. Their customs department is just horrible.

One of the best things in order to avoid duty taxes when shipping your robots or parts abroad is declaring it either as sample without value for small stuff and prototype for large stuff. When youre traveling and its absolutely your personal possessions (like tools for example) you can write it as personal property or for personal use on the shipping bill because youre not supposed to pay duty taxes on your property when traveling. If you have to pay anyway you can reclaim it, just the way Woody described. This is so because when you have bought your stuff you already paid taxes.
It is different for certain goods like tobacco and alcohol, be sure to make the proper inquiries at the authorities.
When the company I worked for was (for instance) shipping computers for seminars abroad we declared them as company property, for use abroad, not for sale. The larger courier companies have procedures for such shipments that facilitate the paperwork and avoid extra expenses.

Also, if you want to know about real bad shipping woes: when you travel to countries in which the Sharia is upheld try to avoid any (and I do mean ANY) reference in and on your property to what might be seen as p°rn or religion. This is a serious matter as your property could be seized and destroyed, and it could take time for the customs officers to search them. It was terribly awkward when an employee of ours landed in an airport and had to surrender his laptop to customs authorities who wanted to examine the contents. He was suppposed to be in that country for only 3 days. The time needed for examining the laptop on forbidden contents was... 3 days.

Same goes for non-muslim countries with strict obscenity laws such as Singapore for example.

Also Sg has a similar system to the pay and reclaim taxes such as GST (Goods & Services Tax)

Seems that I made a hash of the last link .......So just incase it holds useful information.

http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/downloadFile?contentID=HMCE_CL_000382http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsP...ntID=HMCE_CL_0 00382

http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel= pageVAT_ShowContent&id=HMCE_CL_000220&propertyType =document#P51_4689http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsP...ument#P51_4689

(Message edited by woody on September 07, 2006)