Customs & VAT

murphaph · September 24, 2021

I know it sounds cliched but really the media need to be involved. The likes of Pat Kenny on Newstalk would surely be interested in doing a piece on this in the run up to xmas. There will be tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of gifts arriving into Ireland from outside the EU soon and the vast majority will have no HS codes as they are not required on non-commercial parcels and those that do will almost certainly be of the common or garden 8 digit variety. Are An Post going to basically send all these parcels back??

irishmail · September 24, 2021

47 minutes ago, murphaph said:

I know it sounds cliched but really the media need to be involved. The likes of Pat Kenny on Newstalk would surely be interested in doing a piece on this in the run up to xmas. There will be tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of gifts arriving into Ireland from outside the EU soon and the vast majority will have no HS codes as they are not required on non-commercial parcels and those that do will almost certainly be of the common or garden 8 digit variety. Are An Post going to basically send all these parcels back??

Well the way they seem to be operating at the moment it could well be the case. With my packet (only a small jiffy bag type) from my Brother in law, only last night I found out it failed 'customs' clearance'. This I only found out by the tracking information. Not all parcels are sent registered so God knows what happens to them! The wife's parcel which was sent early September ( which we paid additional VAT on) still no response on that one. I emailed the ecommchargequery@anpost and still not had a even an automated reply! .

Like amdaley I sent a polite email to all the TD's in my county, so will see what happens from there.

Edited September 24, 2021 by irishmail

BosKonay · September 24, 2021

Perhaps a parcel Motel type option that delivers to Northern Ireland then rouges to the south?

Georgeconna · September 24, 2021

10 hours ago, Mayner said:

Recent e-mail from my NZ Post account manager indicates that An Post require a 10 digit TARIC code to clear an Item through Irish Customs, although the EU TARIC look up site shows an 8 digit code

The example is a kit that An Post claim was rejected as a result of issues with the electronic customs declaration.

"Hi John,

We've had feedback on advice for Ireland bound shipments going forward. Please see this below.

1. Descriptions to have spaces between words. '/' is not an ideal word separator.

2. The tariff item to be entered is the 10-digit taric code for EU destined items.

For example, 95030030 could be 9503003000 however, to be clear, this is not being provided as tariff advice, it is an example. It is the sender's responsibility for providing the correct taric information.

It might be worth raising the issue on an RTE consumer affairs problem especially as its coming up to Christmas. A phone call or programme on gifts from family in the UK and children's toys being delayed because of An Post bureaucracy is certain to stir public interest.

FYI The T/C is 8 digits for exports from EU and 10 for imports.

The Slash is obviously an issue with an optical reader or data transfer for that. Tis a real pain for sure

BTW I thought I got a clean getaway with a package from FED EX last month, Came home to a letter telling me I owe then 14 notes for the vat and clearance.

Customs clearance€5.00

Disbursement fee €8.23

Plus a 1.15 Vat Fee

So not too much of a rip of price I had feared but never the less it cost me 6 notes extra for this delivery now.

Christ the EU have done us Zero favours here on this one for sure.

irishmail · September 24, 2021

4 minutes ago, BosKonay said:

Perhaps a parcel Motel type option that delivers to Northern Ireland then rouges to the south?

Not sure if that would work now. I used to have deliveries by DPD parcel wizard, but they finished this service in December last year due to Brexit!! This was handy for ebay purchases from sellers who do not post to Ireland.

I have previously used address pal in the past which was fine when you could collect from your local post office, but that service is now 'from' €6.50 plus any possible customs/VAT.

If Anpost and custom's got there act together they could maybe adopt a system that murphaph says operates in Germany. Surely this would be a logical way forward and would also create employment for the local economy.

Georgeconna · September 24, 2021

On 22/9/2021 at 8:12 AM, murphaph said:

If it's anything like the large sorting offices here you won't get past the gate.

I needed to pick something up in the Cork one when that was open and they did have a visitors area. With covid maybe not now.

Oh and one more thing FED EX / TNT are now getting their stuff done in Philippines. I have massive issues trying to get customs entries corrected. I wonder have An Post Contracted this out also.

TimO · September 24, 2021

George,

When you look up the EU website for TARIC codes they clearly show an 8 digit number such 95030030. There is no mention of 10 digits for imports. What are the two additional digits and where should they be placed?

A bit more research and I found out the answers. See subsequent post.

Edited September 24, 2021 by TimO
Information updated

murphaph · September 24, 2021

This article explains that the HS and TARIC codes are similar but different. The TARIC includes the HS code but also has a further set of digits (2 to 4) and this seems to be the problem in An Post's system. TARIC is an EU thing. HS is pretty much a global standard now.

https://www.ecommerce-nation.com/you-dont-know-what-a-taric-code-is-everything-you-need-to-know-about-this-tariff-code/

I guess the user interface or the API An Post uses is simply not fit for purpose and instead of automatically padding out the HS code to the TARIC code by adding some zeros, it just spits out an error message. I bet that the software in use in other countries doesn't have this problem and can handle "simple" HS codes with no user interaction required so it's not prone to error.

I didn't know any of this beyond the simple HS code before but An Post and their software supplier should have and maybe they should have. Parcels simply should not be sent back because they "only" have an 8 digit HS code. That's all they need to be classified for customs and if they are gifts they shouldn't even require that.

I suspect that before Brexit and the changes to the EU rules, An Post staff in these mails centres had an awful lot less to do because anything coming from GB never went near customs checks and stuff under €22 was waved through (and we know how much stuff was under-declared, especially coming in from China). They are now swamped and every single parcel from GB has to be processed, regardless of value. They probably had to hire a lot of new people and they probably don't all know their way around their seemingly fragile software.

TimO · September 24, 2021

Adding to the above and after a lot more research the TARIC code for imports is a 10 digit number made up of HS code 6 digits, CN (Combined Nomenclature) 2 digits and TARIC 2 digits.

When you enter the TARIC database and select section XX, chapter 95 and then code 9503 0030 for model trains this number will be in blue and underlined indicating it is a declarable code, you might think this is the end of the story but you must hit return on this which brings you back to the first page and now displays the TARIC code as a full 10 digit number 9503003000. This last step is not intuitive but is described in one of the user guides.

Hope this helps and perhaps the suppliers need to be advised.

Edited September 24, 2021 by TimO
NC revised to CN and a few other details added

declan64 · September 24, 2021

Just a quick update on my Hattons / DHL experience.

Hattons refunded me within the hour after I sent them the DHL receipt and they apologised for what had happened stating they had messed up on the sending side and my package should have gone out by Royal Mail and not DHL. Given DHL wouldn't have had any supporting documentation that VAT had been paid they went ahead and charged me. If they actually looked at the labeling they should have seen otherwise.

Anyway, I have the package and at no extra expense apart from some unwanted hassle. I think Hattons got the message and were all over it.

amdaley · September 24, 2021

2 minutes ago, declan64 said:

Just a quick update on my Hattons / DHL experience.

Hattons refunded me within the hour after I sent them the DHL receipt and they apologised for what had happened stating they had messed up on the sending side and my package should have gone out by Royal Mail and not DHL. Given DHL wouldn't have had any supporting documentation that VAT had been paid they went ahead and charged me. If they actually looked at the labeling they should have seen otherwise.

Anyway, I have the package and at no extra expense apart from some unwanted hassle. I think Hattons got the message and were all over it.

Think yourself lucky that Hattons didn't use Royal Mail, otherwise you'd still be waiting like a lot of the rest of us

Georgeconna · September 24, 2021

6 hours ago, TimO said:

George,

When you look up the EU website for TARIC codes they clearly show an 8 digit number such 95030030. There is no mention of 10 digits for imports. What are the two additional digits and where should they be placed?

A bit more research and I found out the answers. See subsequent post.

Cheers Tim, Dealing with Customs and clearances is what I do to pay for these toy Train toy things!

Sick of the sh1t now to be Honest, Mistakes and issues right across the board every day to deal with from all the major players,

Computers have made this a lot harder TBH

DiveController · September 24, 2021

Computers operate to a protocol as they're basically a dumb binary system of electrical pulses, whereas the fine minds that work this taxation system .................. more drink!

amdaley · September 28, 2021

Well I bit the bullet this morning & rang An Post customer services on 01 7057600
After 35 minutes I got to the top of the queue.
I gave him the two tracking numbers & he told me the first one is being sent back because of an incorrect Customs declaration. Nice of them to tell me. I asked him if there was anything I could do to stop this & he replied no as An Post can't do anything if the declaration is incorrect. I said I thought that when there was a problem that An Post were supposed to contact either the seller or the recipient for information before sending it back. He denied that was the case?
The second package has had a customs charge attached to it, which I would expect & he gave me the Customs number as I hadn’t received any notification.
Putting in the number it told me that the service wasn't available at present & to try later
After lunch I tried again & paid the charge.
Now I’ve been on to the seller Kevin Dickinson at Coastal Dcc in the UK & he can’t understand why the first package was rejected as the Customs declaration form CN22 is exactly the same as that on the second package which has got through?
He’s going to check with his Post Office & get back to me on it. He’s afraid to send out replacements in case the same thing happens again.
The strange thing is that Royal Mail held onto the second package in Heathrow until last Sat before sending it over to Ireland? Maybe something has been sorted out?

skinner75 · September 28, 2021

I paid €29 online this morning for duty on the weed van I ordered from Silver Fox last November. Postie left the customs charge note in this morning

amdaley · September 28, 2021

13 minutes ago, skinner75 said:

I paid €29 online this morning for duty on the weed van I ordered from Silver Fox last November. Postie left the customs charge note in this morning

Last November

skinner75 · September 28, 2021

I knew there was going to be a bit of a wait till they did another run of them when I placed the order, but yeah!

amdaley · September 28, 2021

3 minutes ago, skinner75 said:

I knew there was going to be a bit of a wait till they did another run of them when I placed the order, but yeah!

Sorry but I thought that your post was stuck in An Post since last Nov

Edited September 28, 2021 by amdaley

Westcorkrailway · September 28, 2021

2 minutes ago, skinner75 said:

I knew there was going to be a bit of a wait till they did another run of them when I placed the order, but yeah!

I’m still waiting on some AEC railcars I ordered some 12 months ago. Unfortunatly it will be charged like an order taken now

jhb171achill · September 28, 2021

49 minutes ago, Westcorkrailway said:

I’m still waiting on some AEC railcars I ordered some 12 months ago. Unfortunatly it will be charged like an order taken now

Presumably you mean the Silverfox ones?

I've stuff on order from them too, and I think that it will be early next year when it's ready - though I'm unaware of whether that's an estimate due to delivery delays or production delays.

irishmail · September 28, 2021

This is an email I had from Anpsot in response to the email that I sent them on 10th September! They have not even made any effort to resolve any issues or reply to my enquiries. It seems from others who have been in contact with them they have been trained/programmed to just say the same excuse to everyone!

One on my local TD's is looking into this, so will see what happens.

"Dear Customer

We apologise that that due to high volume of enquiries in recent weeks, we have been unable to respond within the normal timeframe. We regret any inconvenience this may have caused you.

If your query has since been resolved to your satisfaction, there is no need to respond to this email. If we don’t hear back from you, we will close your enquiry.

If your query has not been resolved and relates to Customs or Customs Payments, please see below for further information.

If your query does not concern Customs, please reply by email so that we can answer your enquiry directly.

Customs/Customs Payments:

If your enquiry relates to an item coming from a country outside of the European Union(EU), including the United Kingdom, the following information may help:
Due to EU Customs rules, charges apply when you buy goods outside of the EU. The EU Customs regulations have been expanded since July 1^st this year. Customs charges are collected by An Post on behalf of Irish Revenue once Irish Customs have determined what tariffs are to be paid.
If you have checked the status of an inbound item using our online Track & Trace facility, and your item is shown to have been ‘Returned to Sender’, this is due to one of the following reasons:
- The customs charge wasn't paid on time. Customers are notified of EU customs charges by text/email/post and given 16 days to pay securely online or at their local post office. The required customs declaration made by the Sender was insufficient or invalid according to Customs regulations. Under EU Customs regulations, retailers (or other senders) must provide electronic customs declaration data for every items being posted into the EU. More information on these requirements can be found under the ‘Sending to Ireland from non-EU countries’ section on anpost.com/sending. Unfortunately, An Post cannot amend customs declaration data, so items arriving into Ireland with incomplete data have to be returned.
- The item (or some of the goods) being sent to you are prohibited or restricted under EU Customs rules. Restricted goods require detailed advance electronic declarations for each item. Prohibited goods are not allowed into the EU. For more information, visit the Revenue website
- If your item is shown to have been ‘Returned to Sender’ despite you having already paid the requested customs charge through An Post, please email ecommchargequery@anpost.ie to request a refund of your payment.

If your customs query remains unresolved, and you need further information, please respond to this email and let us know.

Once again, we apologise for any inconvenience caused and we hope that this information is useful. Please see anpost.com/customs for further information.
Kind regards,

An Post Customer Contact Centre"

amdaley · September 28, 2021

4 minutes ago, irishmail said:

This is an email I had from Anpsot in response to the email that I sent them on 10th September! They have not even made any effort to resolve any issues or reply to my enquiries. It seems from others who have been in contact with them they have been trained/programmed to just say the same excuse to everyone!

One on my local TD's is looking into this, so will see what happens.

"Dear Customer

We apologise that that due to high volume of enquiries in recent weeks, we have been unable to respond within the normal timeframe. We regret any inconvenience this may have caused you.

If your query has since been resolved to your satisfaction, there is no need to respond to this email. If we don’t hear back from you, we will close your enquiry.

If your query has not been resolved and relates to Customs or Customs Payments, please see below for further information.

If your query does not concern Customs, please reply by email so that we can answer your enquiry directly.

Customs/Customs Payments:

If your enquiry relates to an item coming from a country outside of the European Union(EU), including the United Kingdom, the following information may help:
Due to EU Customs rules, charges apply when you buy goods outside of the EU. The EU Customs regulations have been expanded since July 1^st this year. Customs charges are collected by An Post on behalf of Irish Revenue once Irish Customs have determined what tariffs are to be paid.

If you have checked the status of an inbound item using our online Track & Trace facility, and your item is shown to have been ‘Returned to Sender’, this is due to one of the following reasons:

The customs charge wasn't paid on time. Customers are notified of EU customs charges by text/email/post and given 16 days to pay securely online or at their local post office. The required customs declaration made by the Sender was insufficient or invalid according to Customs regulations. Under EU Customs regulations, retailers (or other senders) must provide electronic customs declaration data for every items being posted into the EU. More information on these requirements can be found under the ‘Sending to Ireland from non-EU countries’ section on anpost.com/sending. Unfortunately, An Post cannot amend customs declaration data, so items arriving into Ireland with incomplete data have to be returned.

The item (or some of the goods) being sent to you are prohibited or restricted under EU Customs rules. Restricted goods require detailed advance electronic declarations for each item. Prohibited goods are not allowed into the EU. For more information, visit the Revenue website

If your item is shown to have been ‘Returned to Sender’ despite you having already paid the requested customs charge through An Post, please email ecommchargequery@anpost.ie to request a refund of your payment.

If your customs query remains unresolved, and you need further information, please respond to this email and let us know.

Once again, we apologise for any inconvenience caused and we hope that this information is useful. Please see anpost.com/customs for further information.
Kind regards,

An Post Customer Contact Centre"

The usual blah blah so.

I've emailed so many Td's & Ministers at this point I feel I know them personally.

Too lazy to do the job properly. My local post office clerk reckons they are just taking the easy way out.

Tony.

irishmail · September 28, 2021

2 minutes ago, amdaley said:

The usual blah blah so.

I've emailed so many Td's & Ministers at this point I feel I know them personally.

Too lazy to do the job properly. My local post office clerk reckons they are just taking the easy way out.

Tony.

More or less what out local postie has said. Apparently anything that does not fit the customs description is put into a crate to be sent back only when it is full!! So our parcels may well be sitting in Dublin 12! Just checked for updates on mine and the tracking shows mine is still there.

Regards, John

23 September 2021 17:06

Customs clearance have identified a problem with the customs declaration accompanying your item. As such, the item must be returned to the sender.

21 September 2021 22:42

We could not deliver your post. We will try to return it to the sender.

20 September 2021 13:19

Your delivery has been sorted DUBLIN MAIL CENTRE, DUBLIN 12

20 September 2021 13:18

We have your post in DUBLIN MAIL CENTRE, DUBLIN 12

20 September 2021 13:17

Your delivery was received by An Post in DUBLIN MAIL CENTRE, DUBLIN 12

amdaley · September 28, 2021

12 minutes ago, irishmail said:

More or less what out local postie has said. Apparently anything that does not fit the customs description is put into a crate to be sent back only when it is full!! So our parcels may well be sitting in Dublin 12! Just checked for updates on mine and the tracking shows mine is still there.

Regards, John

23 September 2021 17:06

Customs clearance have identified a problem with the customs declaration accompanying your item. As such, the item must be returned to the sender.

21 September 2021 22:42

We could not deliver your post. We will try to return it to the sender.

20 September 2021 13:19

Your delivery has been sorted DUBLIN MAIL CENTRE, DUBLIN 12

20 September 2021 13:18

We have your post in DUBLIN MAIL CENTRE, DUBLIN 12

20 September 2021 13:17

Your delivery was received by An Post in DUBLIN MAIL CENTRE, DUBLIN 12

At least you know what's happening to your package.

This is what I get. Been that way for 10 days now.

I don't think any package has ever been sorted so much

Regards.

Tony.

27 September 2021 13:52

Your delivery has been sorted DUBLIN MAIL CENTRE, DUBLIN 12

27 September 2021 13:50