Brian,
The Customs people have no real idea of the value of figures, if you take E bay as a guide they are charging VAT at roughly 20% of the final bid price, so E Bay is already adding the equivalent of the UK Vat to the price of your purchase, HMC are then inspecting packages for which they charge you the buyer £12.00 then they add on VAT at 20% on their interpretation of the Value. So if you package is insured for £1000.00 they will add £200.00. They will also look at their interpretation of the resale value of the figures and calculate their VAT value on that.
Really I know that we used to pay VAT on purchases prior to joining the EU but they were always realistic prices, which I never minded paying.
I purchased a group of figures for 15.50 Euro's when Customs got hold of it they charges £68.00 for VAT Plus £12.00 inspection fee. Sadly the total value of the Package was about £30.00,so the package is presumably sitting in some Customs officers desk waiting return to sender.
I assume that if you have a VAT number you could quote that, get the goods and then argue the value with Customs but, that is going to be a waste of time as they will not refund a over payment.
Really the changes on VAT were ill thought out and will effectively cripple some of the smaller figure importers and make the resale at a profit unachievable.
I also understand that the European Manufacturers are looking to increase their prices.., to reflect the increases in production costs, electricity etc. which again will place European production out of the market. Please remember when you go to Kulmbach and bring back figures, if you don't declare them to Customs, you face the possibility of them being seized and you fined for \ax evasion.
