The Inconsistency of Irish Import Duty
Posted on April 4, 2008 - Filed Under Life-In-General |
I collected a package from the Post Office the other day. It was an batch of T-shirts I had ordered from the States, and I had specifically asked that it be marked as a gift so that no price would appear on the package, so that I couldn’t be smacked with any import duties or other forms of tax. My plan failed though, and when I got the package I found that some assorted swine in the Postal Service had ripped it open, rifled through the contents, found no price or other figures quotes anywhere within the package, and had, undeterred, slapped a €20.19 charge onto it.
Apparently €5 of this charge was ‘PO Clearance’, which is fair enough. I mean, someone has to be paid for going to the trouble of poking around at the contents of my package, and ripping the rather cool bag they were sent in. Some of this fee no doubt also goes towards paying the genius responsible for determining the rest of the charge, which was described as “VAT”. This figure was devised using a highly sophisticated set of mystic calculations, based on fuck knows what, but certainly not any real figures pertaining to my package.
I was rather annoyed about all this, but the old fellow working in the office said that it wasn’t his decision to apply the charge, and I felt bad arguing about it with him, so I just left in a bad mood, despite my nice new T-shirts.
Then today another package arrived, this time at my house. Although I had also asked that this be marked as a gift, the price was prominently displayed on the front of it, along with a postage charge that I had already paid while placing the order (I had paid for postage on the last package also). This was a much bigger order, so I fully expected that I would be raped on import duty or VAT, but instead the postman just delivered it and asked that I sign for it. So I don’t know what to make of the postal system. Maybe they just charge you when they feel like it.
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I’m totally ignorant of this sort of thing, but I’ve ordered lots of stuff online from the UK and US and never paid more than I was quoted on the online receipt…