DHL customs duty vat invoice. How to dispute.

[Nico Albrecht]

Received to our UK lab a damaged clients hard drive posted from Asia to UK via DHL 2 weeks ago. Client posted it to us via DHL.

Today we received a DHL custom VAT invoice for £41 also wrong company on there.

Valued goods by DHL £150 Code: 8471900000

£11 admin fee ( fine with that happy to pay the usual fee ) and £30 VAT.

The item when new in working condition was about £35, 10 years ago so not sure where they even got the £150 from. This is basically scrap value.

Description of goods: faulty Seagate hard drive 500GB was provided by customers on label.

What would be the best course of action without spending hours on the phone with those guys and listen to there usual excuses and incompetence.

For some unknown reason this is only ever a problem with DHL on import. Normally I just pay the admin fee and tell them that's it take it to court. Works most of the time but get annoyed at those collections agencies calling for 6 months before giving up.

 

[Mike Foulds]

Hi There.

I would suggest that, if DHL are entering the cargo for a value of GBP 150, then they must have an invoice from your shipper declaring it as such.

I would suggest that you need to speak with your shipper and put in place a SOP with invoices for the goods being approved by yourselves (If these are faulty drives, I am guessing they are coming in to be repaired and returned, or data salvaged and destroyed). If so, then this needs to be declared on any invoices, and made clear to DHL at time of booking, otherwise DHL will just believe these to be new items.

If DHL have been told the value of GBP 150, then they will of course enter as such, and a VAT amount of 20% would be applicable for any import to the UK. This is correct and would be standard procedure.

Where it's VAT only, HMRC would not entertain a reclaim being done.

If paid, are you not able to re-claim this VAT on your quarterly VAT return?

Also, if the goods are re-exported, then you should be able to bring them in as a temporary import, with duty/vat being suspended, or reclaimed upon export.

Hope this all helps.