Isn't falsely declaring an item as a gift against the law?
Yes, definitely. I'm running an ebay business at the moment and a lot of sellers undercut others ( myself included ) when buying their stock from China by under declaring the value of their package or saying it's a gift.
With anything shipping from outside of Europe here you'll get hit with an import duty rate which the % varies with depending on the item in question.
For example clothing is generally 12% , the 12% will be added to the items overall price including the postage and then they'll add import VAT on top of that.
So to make it simpler if something is £100.00 shipped and the duty rate for this item is 5% , they'll add on the import duty of £5.00 which then equals £105.00 , then they'll take 20% of this new total so £21.00.
The final total is : £126.00
Some couriers will also add on an extra fee for processing everything which from my experience can range from £2.50 to £15.00.
DHL have always charged my £2.50 but recently Fedex sent me a bill with the processing fee of £10.00.
It all seems complicated but once you get to grips with it its simple enough.
The biggest problem I've faced when buying from China , for both business and personal purchases is that sellers under declare the value without even asking and just presume that's fine with the buyer. This can be a nightmare when the taxman comes along and asks why I haven't paid my customs and duty fees and takes a bit of effort explaining. If I use a new supplier now I always have to be 100% sure they'll declare the value correctly.
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