[Gllug] re: ipaq battery from the USA

[Tethys]

Ben Fitzgerald writes:

>Woah!
>
>Import duty includes shipping costs and then VAT is charged on top of
>all that.

Yep, sucks, doesn't it. The logic behind it is that the value of the goods
includes shipping and import duty, since you were obviously prepared to
pay those to have the product imported, rather than buy the prodcut
locally. Since VAT is a tax on the value, it includes the whole lot.
It's actually not such an unfair system, and does indeed promote the
concept of buying British.

Where it falls down are for those goods which are *only* available from
abroad. For those, there is no option to buy British in the first place,
and it just leaves an unpleasant taste of being ripped off by the government.

Tet
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