December 2008
 |
 |
 |
|
Welcome
Welcome to the December newsletter from Customs Clearance Ltd. We’re sending you our Seasons Greetings and all best wishes for health, happiness and prosperity in the year ahead. Customs news is a bit light this month, but there’s the issue of the reduction in VAT in the UK, which is good news all round. We also thought it might be a good time to review the customs and shipping options for e-commerce businesses and buyers. But given the time of year, this issue is really about warm greetings and gratitude. We – the owners of Customs Clearance Ltd - would like to say a big ‘thank you’ to the CCL community – our staff, contractors and associates, for helping to make the last 12 months run smoothly and successfully. We know it isn’t always easy and that a lot of hard work and effort goes into making the wheels of CCL keep on turning, so thank you all for your commitment. Of course we reserve a huge ‘thank you’ too, to all our customers, for their continued support and their business, particularly in this globally ‘crunching’ time. We sincerely hope to be able to continue being of service to every one of you throughout the year ahead, meeting your needs and exceeding your expectations. If you have time for a quick break between the endless round of office parties, play our game again this month. We ‘de-Christmassified’ it after the festivities last year, but it’s still a great test of hand-eye coordination, so you could have some fun as long as your eyes aren’t too glassy or your hands too shaky! Click here to test your flying skills and geography knowledge! Enjoy the rest of this issue and don’t forget, for any customs and importation queries, even over the festive season, make our friendly and approachable Customer Services team on +44 (0)20 8231 0900 your first port of call. In this issueVAT's a Bit of Good News! VAT's a Bit of Good News!This month's reduction in VAT in the UK, from 17.5% to 15% makes the UK probably the most attractive gateway entry point into the European Union. Remember, Customs Clearance Ltd can handle clearance of your goods for all countries across Europe through the UK and then if needed, assist with onward distribution across the UK and to all other countries within Europe. Contact our Customer Services team today for more information. E-Commerce - Your Global High StreetThe early days of December are by far the busiest time of the year for internet shopping. Where the local high street is suffering a dearth of customers, the global high street on the web gets larger and busier, year on year. People are buying more, and they’re buying it from much farther afield. No longer are they limited to the shops they can reach by car or bus. They can buy from across the globe. The good news the HMRC announced a month or so ago about the De Minimis limits on customs duty when importing by mail, coupled with the reduction in VAT, is helping to offset some of the burden of poor exchange rates for UK/Sterling shoppers. So if you’re an e-commerce supplier of goods which you source from around the world, doing trade with UK and European customers via your web site, how can Customs Clearance Ltd help you? At this time of year order volumes can be higher than average, and each year, more and more people buy goods from abroad for the first time. They need you, the supplier, to have a fast, efficient shipping system, and easy customs clearance and delivery processes. Customs Clearance Ltd has a tried-and-tested ‘blueprint for success’. We’ve put in place a suite of processes that help our customers gain competitive edge and provide a service to their customers that keeps them coming back for more. Most probably, you collate your overseas orders just once a day, then transmit to your overseas supplier(s), who then each produce a single shipment in return. Customs Clearance Ltd can manage the collection and freighting of those shipments to the UK, regardless of the point of origination. With the appropriate documentation from suppliers, we can then customs clear the shipments, collect them and, using our own warehouse facilities, break them down into their individual customer orders and dispatch these to your customers across the UK and Europe by a range of means, to reach your customers. Customs Clearance Ltd acts as your ‘hub’ for the UK and Europe, handling the shipping, customs clearance, break-bulk and onward forwarding for you from end-to-end – and you never even need to see the goods you’re selling. We can handle this process for you either DDP (Duty Delivered Paid) or DDU (Duty Delivered Unpaid). In the case of DDU, our on-line secure payment system ensures that your customers can pay the required duty quickly and easily, via their PC. If you’re a buyer – whether for business or as a private consumer, you may of course never know or care where your purchases originate from. Or, you may be more adventurous and quite prepared to buy from overseas web sites directly. If this is the case, you will need to know what arrangements your overseas supplier makes when shipping the goods, and what duties you will need to pay when your goods reach the UK. Whatever the case, unless the value is below the De Minimis limit in place when your shipment arrives, you will have customs duty to pay, and, inevitably, VAT too. So don’t let these items be a shock to you when the time comes. If you are contacted by Customs in order to clear higher-value items, know that we can take care of this process for you and arrange for delivery of your goods at your convenience – just give our friendly Customer Services team a call to find out how to set this up. Customs Clearance Ltd exists to make the process of freighting and clearing customs a pain-free and straightforward experience, whether you’re an e-commerce business or a private individual. With our experienced, professional support, you can gain back valuable hours and days in handling customs processes. De Minimis Limits to Customs Duty for Goods Imported by PostThe revised De Minimis limits to customs duty for goods imported by post have been up-and-running for a couple of weeks now and everything seems to be proceeding without a hitch. The new value threshold for consignments dispatched by letter or parcel post which will be admitted free of Customs duty is now €150 (£105). CIP (08)72 further advises that the customs duty threshold will increase to £120 on 1st January 2009. There’s a little more good news too. HMRC have modified their stance on the issue of import duty and are now saying that if the value of a shipment is between £18 and £105 then this will also be waived. Coffee Break Story: Twas the Night Before ChristmasHere’s a festive ‘coffee break’ story for your time-out time. Enjoy! I’m glad I was the first one to the office that morning - the morning after the night before – know what I mean? I’m the boss (so they tell me), and hangover or no hangover, well, you just have to be at your desk on time, don’t you? The morning after the staff party. Even if it is Christmas Eve. If only to quietly note who else makes it in on time, and more to the point, who doesn’t.... Anyway, I pulled up outside at around 10 minutes before 9, and as I rounded the corner aiming for my usual parking space, I had to slam on the brakes. There, straddling no less than ten parking spaces, including my own, was the biggest, hugest, brightest, shiniest, fanciest looking sleigh, I’d ever seen. Well, to be honest, I haven’t actually ever seen a sleigh before in real life – just the odd one on the telly, usually round about this time of year. But it was a pretty spectacular sight. I parked in next-door’s spot, hoping they would understand, and climbed out of the car. Anyhow, this sleigh – think of it a bit like a very large horse-and-carriage, but with runners instead of wheels. And.... well... reindeer instead of a horse. Actually, I counted them, and there were twelve in all, resplendent in fine polished tack, each one bearing reins weighed down with line after line of little golden bells. The noise was quite extraordinary – jingling bells, snorting reindeer, their breath freezing in the cold morning air, their hooves clattering against the concrete - and the gentle hum of rush-hour traffic in the background. Anyhow, this sleigh... those reindeer (I noticed the one at the front seemed to have a very rosy nose), were just quietly resting, and I looked around for the driver (is that what you call somebody who steers a sleigh?). I didn’t see him at first as he was under the porch. But then he turned around and spotted me and with a big, booming “Ho!” he smiled broadly and waved in my direction. My, he was a big fella, there’s no doubt about it. And he wasn’t exactly quietly dressed either. I imagine he makes a bit of an entrance wherever he goes. I know it was a bit nippy this morning, but even I could see he was just a little overdressed. A big red jacket, all flumped up around the collar and cuffs with the whitest fur, matching red trousers (all a bit showy in my opinion but my wife and her friends would probably call it ‘over-coordinated’), tucked into the glossiest pair of wellington boots I’d seen for a very long time. A wide, shiny black belt was doing its best to keep a line of bright gold buttons from popping right open. For goodness sake, he even had a matching hat – a great floppy thing with a bobble! He was a massive, beardy giant of a man, with rosy cheeks and a huge smile, but he bounded towards me like a puppy and embraced me in a huge warm hug. He was too fast for me - I had to go with it. There really wasn’t time to stick out my arm for a professional handy-shaky moment. So there I was in the car park, being literally embraced, by this bubbly, laughing, larger-than-life chap in a red suit. “Boy, am I glad to see you!” he boomed, when I finally managed to extract myself from his grip. “I’ve got myself into a bit of a pickle and I need some help.” I unlocked the front door and showed him in. I offered him a mug of coffee, which he gladly accepted, then sat him down. He seemed to fill the room, and he chuckled and grinned as he explained his predicament. It seems he had an important shipment in progress and the deliveries all had to be made that night. He had packages for just about everywhere in the world, all piled up on the back of that sleigh in the car park. They were for children mostly, and that’s why he didn’t want to let them down. But he’d been speaking with HM Revenue and Customs and they’d been insisting on him completing a mass of forms before he could move these packages around the world. He didn’t look like the form-filling kind to me, and indeed, it seems this task was proving to be something of a nightmare for him. He handed over a file bursting with crumpled sheets of paper. It was obvious he’d lost the plot a bit with the forms but the customs guys weren’t going to let him get away with it, even though he was apparently doing all the deliveries himself. He asked me, could I help. Well of course! It’s what we do, here at Customs Clearance Ltd. No job to small – no job too big. Customs clearance for imports and customs clearance for exports too. I crossed my fingers though – because he kept on saying how really, very, vitally important it was that he could get all the paperwork processed today, so he could make his deliveries that night. He was a really lovely guy – quite bubbling over with enthusiasm and good cheer. Even considering the urgent nature of his job, he wasn’t fretting – in fact he kept chuckling quietly to himself and muttering something under his breath. When I asked him to repeat himself, he simply said, “That plane you got from me when you were six must have made quite an impression!”... I didn’t understand what he was going on about, so I let it go. Anyhow, with his warmth and joviality, he made me want to help him, and I quite forgot my hangover. And as the staff slowly drifted into the office (ok, I’m minded to be generous, do I really want to be making an issue about a few minutes lateness on a day like this?). In the end, everybody pitched in and we got all the forms on the system and processed. The big fella in the red outfit was thrilled to bits. He rustled up a tin of mince pies for the workers and dispensed rather too much mulled wine for my liking, but he made a lot of friends that day and put a smile on all our faces. And when he went on his way as it began to get dark, there was a definite twinkle in his eye. |
|
| Customs Clearance Limited | |
10th Dec 2008
