Silvertraders topics ( Importation Vat on numismatic coins into the UK is not 20% ! )

Border Force Complaints Team
Priory Court
St John’s Road
Dover
Kent CT17 9SH

Email borderforcecomplaints@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
Web www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk

Mr M >>>>>>>>>

Email: >>>>>>>>>>>>@hotmail.co.uk




Date 24 June 2013 Accredited to the Customer Service Excellence
standard
Our Ref 40969 and TO188784
Your Ref: AR535182112GB, AD397682753GB and AR535169014GB

Dear Mr >>>>>>>>

Thank you for your correspondence sent to the Border Force Complaints Team and to the Immigration Minister. This has been passed to me as the officer responsible for handling your complaint. Before I respond to your specific concerns regarding the above parcels, I would like to assure you all complaints about our staff and the level of service provided by Border Force are treated seriously. Furthermore, such complaints are used as an opportunity to learn and improve services.

If you believe your complaint has not been dealt with in the right way you may write to us at the address above and a complaints manager will check the process used to look into your complaint, to ensure it was both appropriate and followed correctly. You must do this within one month of the date of this letter.

In line with our usual procedures, which are set out in detail at http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/ab...kingacomplaint, I have asked the operational manager at the Coventry International Hub (CIH) to assess the circumstances relating to the matter you have complained about. With this work now complete, I have based my response on their findings. I hope my reply helps you to understand the reasons why.

Parcel reference, AR535182112GB was correctly charged on 20% VAT at the time of import. I am therefore not upholding this particular aspect of your complaint. You advised Border Force the exporter had entered the wrong commodity code on the declaration. You provided further information received by CIH on 22 March 2013 substantiating this and enabled them to process a part refund for the sum of £67.50. The payment was processed on the 17 May 2013 and you should receive a payable order within 30 working days.

I am advised Parcel reference, AD397682753GB was incorrectly charged on 20% VAT at the time of import despite a commodity code on the declaration to levy 5% VAT. I am upholding this element of your complaint and I am sorry for any inconvenience caused by this error. The further information received from you on 22 March 2013 meant CIH could process a part refund for the sum of £144.75. This was also processed on 17 May 2013 and a payable order should be received by you within 30 working days.

It has been determined that parcel reference, AR535169014GB was charged levying 20% VAT. Unfortunately the operational manager at CIH has been unable to view the declaration for this parcel. However, a Border Force officer at CIH at the time of import did make a note advising the contents of the parcel was declared as ‘sample coins’. I should explain sample coins would not attract 5% VAT so CIH acted correctly by applying 20% VAT charge on this parcel. I cannot for this reason uphold this element of your complaint.

CIH has determined from the correspondence forwarded to and received by the Border Force Complaint Team that you are entitled to a part refund for the sum of £81.35 for parcel reference, AR35169014GB. They processed this on 30 May 2013 and you should receive the payable order within 30 days.

I understand the part refund for parcel reference AR535182112GB was not processed within agreed timescales. I am therefore upholding this element of your complaint. I should explain CIH aims to provide a full response to its customers within 20 working days. However, they are currently experiencing a high level of correspondence. Senior managers are aware customers are not always receiving the level of service they should expect. I am sorry for any inconvenience and upset caused by the delay.

At present CIH is unable to receive email correspondence. However, the National Advice Service (NAS) handles telephone queries on postal imports and will contact CIH on behalf of the customer for clarification if required. Should you wish to contact NAS you may do so by telephoning 0845 010 9000.

I hope my reply has clarified the position. The Border Force complaints team are keen to continually review and improve our services. To help us do so, we would be grateful if you could complete a short online survey. Please access the survey using the following link: http://feedback.ukba.homeoffice.gov....p?i=35927hosbt

Yours sincerely
Mrs P >>>>>>>
Complaints Officer

Hi guys I have sent this response back + this complaint has now gone to the parliamentary ombudsman
Wish me luck :)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

martin >>>>>>>
Attachment
02/07/2013
Documents, Photos
To: mark.harper.mp@parliament.uk
Cc: enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk, freedom.informationteam@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
Picture of martin >>>>>>

From: martin >>>>>>> (>>>>>>>>>>>@hotmail.co.uk)
Sent: 02 July 2013 14:54:29
To: mark.harper.mp@parliament.uk (mark.harper.mp@parliament.uk)
Cc: enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk (enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk); freedom.informationteam@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk (freedom.informationteam@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk)
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4 attachments (total 2.3 MB)
Download Complaint reference 40>>>.doc (182.7 KB)
Complaint reference 40>>>.doc
View online
Download 2nd parcel 2.jpg (767.1 KB)
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Download new parcel.jpg (1342.1 KB)
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Download new parliamentary complaint.docx (15.7 KB)
new parliamentary complaint.docx
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Download all as zip

Martin>>>>>>>

Dear Mark Harper,
Sir Charles Montgomery
Parliamentary ombudsman

Dear Gentlemen,
I recently sent you a parliamentary complaint on the 5th of June see attachment (parliamentary complaint) and have just received a reply from Mrs. P >>>> from the UKBA please see attachment (complaint reference 40>>>)
Apparently this was passed on to her from a minister, rather than treat it as a parliamentary complaint as I requested!
The reason I asked for this to be treated as a parliamentary complaint was because the ukba was refusing to respond to any requests of clarification in regards to them following the rule of law and charging the correct rate of vat on numismatic collector’s items, but also because the Ukba was not responding to complaints in line with their own guidelines.
This response from the ukba in no way answers any of the important questions that I have raised firstly in my original complaint letter or now in my parliamentary complaint.

In regards to the ukba’s response which I have just received, it seems they are only addressing the issue of the 3 parcels that I have received and completely ignoring the more important issues that I have raised regarding their fraudulent behavior, lack of accountability, failure to comply with the rule of law, knock on effects to other services and general unwillingness to correct the problems that they themselves are deliberately causing.
With this in mind I hardly feel this response from ukba warrants any serious reply however I will reply if for no other reason than for my own personal amusement below.

The first parcel is not in question!
The second parcel in which Mrs. >>>> upholds my complaint is in actual fact the parcel where samples were included and not the third parcel as she mentions! See attachment (2nd parcel)
If you’re looking at the attached scan your see that it clearly has the correct code of 9705000000 and x 25 items at a cost of £546. Underneath this is then the reference to sample coins x 3 = N/A
The third parcel DID NOT HAVE SAMPLE COINS ON THE CUSTOMS DECLARATION! It only had the classification code of 9705000000, so this statement by the relevant officer mentioned was false! As I mentioned in my complaint the customs declaration on the third parcel was not on the package when it arrived but the supplier did inform me that they had put this code and only this code on the package just like they have done with this my 4th package please see attachment (new parcel)
This package arrived this week, and was naturally overcharged at the 20% vat rate yet again!
So obviously nothing has changed at the ukba Langley depot! Nor is it likely to change if they are not held to account and forced to desist from their deliberate fraudulent activity!

Moving on let me be perfectly clear
I have no interest in going through the ukba complaints process, they have made it perfectly clear that they are unwilling to respond to the various questions I have raised over their conduct!
They have however dealt with all my refunds, even in regards to this new parcel to which I have already received a letter of refund confirmation in the amazing time frame of less than 5 days since posting my bor286 refund request to them
(Thanks for this to Karen >>>> the correspondence manager in Coventry).
I say Amazing because of the massive backlog in refund requests that the ukba themselves have caused due to overcharging the British public, I suspect they are now up to the beginning of march in regards to this backlog and I thank them for not putting me through another 3 months of aggravation in contrast to the possible 3 to 6 months that any other citizen in this country is having to wait to get a response from them.

Let me sum it up again:
1, they obviously know that they should only be charging 5% vat and judging from this response letter so do the employee’s on the frontline at the Langley depot.
Which begs the question why are they still charging 20% vat on parcels with the correct specification code?
IT is obvious to me that this deliberate overcharging and avoidance or addressing the issues is taking place so as to defraud the general public out of money!
Surely just following the law and charging the correct vat rate instead of overcharging and creating a massive backlog of complaints due to their own fraudulent behavior cannot be that hard to correct!

2, the truth of the matter is this; at any point over the last 4 months the ukba could and should have corrected this problem, not only for the benefit of the British population who keep getting overcharged but also for themselves to nip the backlog and knock on effects in the bud!
Sadly all they seem to be doing is at best ignoring the problem and doing everything in their power to undermine any discussion as to how to follow the rule of law and do their job.
As far as I am concerned when it gets to the point that the only defense they have is statements like “due to the massive backlog and internal problems that we have created we apologize for any inconvenience caused” then it’s beyond a joke and seems pretty clear that the only logical explanation for why this is continuing is because it’s part of a deliberate policy of committing fraud!
Yes they have refunded me my money and yes I am sure that I will get my refunds on any imports in the future again but I am not willing to sit back and allow them to commit fraud on the general population who are unable to find out this information or spend as much time as I have forcing them to do what they should be doing in the first place!

I want answers!
I want to read that the ukba in Langley will respect the rule of law and charge vat on numismatic imports at the correct rate at the point of import without forcing people to jump through hoops, without them having to send in refund requests for money that they should never have had to pay in the first place!
I want to read that any problems that might be stopping this from happening will now be fixed or that employee’s who obviously know this is an issue, will from now charge the correct rate straight away rather than overcharge deliberately in the hope that most people will not bother in requesting a refund and though pretend ignorance financially benefit the ukba from this obvious fraud.
So with all due respect could you now please pass my complaint onto the parliamentary ombudsman, if this is not possible please let me know why?
In the mean time I will be passing all this information on to Nick Brown mp and also a reporter who I have spoken to from the guardian.

Sincerely
Martin >>>>>>

Good work Martin, do you have an update?
http://silverthistle-collectibles.ebid.net/

So basically the Chinese Panda's that I bought earlier this year from Guernsey which was subjected to a 20% Vat, which had to be paid prior to collection, should have really just been a 5% Vat levy? But are Chinese Panda's considered as numismatic coins? Am I to understand from this that any silver coin with a face value that is legal tender can be bought as numismatics from outside the EU, and should by law then only be taxed at 5% providing the correct code is used?

Hey guys sorry i should have updated stuff but have been really busy
basically its just ongoing i'm still fighting the battle but the buggers are taking their time
At the moment its still 20% vat however i am challenging this and until the decision is made your have to pay 20%
( i personally can do it in small amounts due to the amount of paperwork i have etc etc ) but this does not help others like you at the moment :(
will add the latest development / received letter in 4 minutes i need to edit personal details

That's the latest communication that i have !
Don't worry as soon as anything develops I'll let you know
Sincerely Martin

IN ANSWER TO SOMEONE ON A DIFFERENT SITE

A big well done for your efforts so far Martin,I personally will now instruct any Aussie dealers I buy from to use the codes you have shown in your battle with HMRC,I am just a private collector but am p--sed off with being ripped off by HMRC I have spoken by phone a couple of times about the VAT situation and have been fobbed off BUT NO MORE I take my inspiration from yourself.

Well done.


#52 Today 01:05:42

silvertrader.eu
Member
From: United Kingdom
Registered: 2013-06-09
Last Visit: Yesterday
Posts: 23

Re: Importation Vat on numismatic coins into the UK is not 20%

Thanks mate
If you find a dealer who is willing to use the code for numismatic collectors items ( 9705000000 )
and your buying anyway then get them to send it out to you with this code!
Feel free to copy the letter earlier in the thread from hmrc to state your case that its the correct code to use and see what happens
the last 2 parcels that i have received have not incurred a vat charge at all ( 0% ) I'm not sure if this is due to them no longer wanting to play with me lol or if they just happened to miss them !
It could be that the backlog in refunds that they have ( at this moment in time the beginning of august ) is forcing them to the position that its just not worth the trouble to keep charging the 20% and deal with the refund or if i was just lucky enough to get 2 parcels through the system unnoticed.
In 3 months they have only managed to catch up a single month on the refund requests and thats with 2 extra staff being drafted in !
basically if your importing a small parcel anyway and can get it under the code 9705000000 then do it on the basis that they will charge you the 20% vat ! then send in the bor286 with your relevant information and get a refund, which may sadly take 3 months.
Good luck mate

Silvertrader,

I think you might be using the wrong code.

You been using commodity code 9705 00 00 00

There two extra zeros, I believe the correct CN code is 9705 00 00.

Please see part B, 2 of the link below:
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/rdrmmanual/rdrm37030.htm

I have just check with http://www.dutycalculator.com and it does shows 5% charges on coin of numismatic interest.

nope its 9705 00 00 00
I've used it 4 times already and have that code from Hmrc and in various correspondence
maybe they ignore the last 2 digits but that is the full code mate

PS: sorry for the late response i have been very busy

Good luck with this