taxes, united-kingdom, australiaOne of my customers from Australia returned the goods back to UK where they were shipped from.
I received a letter from Royal Mail clearly explaining that RM already paid custom duties to HMRC and will release goods when I reimburse them. They also charge handling fees £8.
Apparently there is no way to get these goods back without agreeing to reimburse RM first.
According to the information on https://www.gov.uk/goods-sent-from-abroad/tax-and-duty there should not be any Customs Duty as goods have value under £135, so I am being charged too much. RM clearly did not care and just paid at Heathrow whatever HMRC demanded.
How can I prevent cases like this from happening in the future?
Also for the future cases, is there any way I could inform HMRC that goods are returned to me from abroad and customs duties should not be levied?
Look into Returned Goods Relief. I haven't gone through the specifics, but the answer will likely be along the lines of: include a commercial invoice (example) along with your package, tell your clients to include it when they return it, and use the requisite form when a problem arises.
What likely happened in your case is that someone probed into the parcel, found no invoice, decided the goods warranted customs duties, paid them, and kept the parcel in custody. The cynic in me is wondering whether the Royal Mail is inflating their bottom line, 8 quid at a time.
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