Petition on UK customs charges As most of you know, buying anything costing more than £18 from overseas will mean you have to pay VAT and import duty, and a whacking great £8 'customs handling charge' from Royal Mail.
I've started a petition on the Number 10 website to try and get the £18 allowance increased - it's been static for years - and abolition of the customs handling charge, which should be included in delivery charges paid upfront.
If you want to sign up, please visit:
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/customsfees


And tell your friends!

I take your point, but there's no point pretending the allowance doesn't exist. A limit is useful for customs because it reduces the need to chase for stupidly small amounts of VAT and import duty.
While raising the allowance might reduce the tax take, most personal allowances - such as for income tax and national insurance - do have some sort of index-linking. Why should the customs allowance be different?

Seriously, what did you expect? As Mal says, they were considering lowering the limit a while back so you'd be best not to stir that particular hornet's nest. Since when did the government ever pay attention to online petitions, especially when they concern doing them out of duty?

You wouldn't get a customs charge for that amount for a single disc; a fair portion of it will be made up of RM charges. Unless of course you used DHL shipping, cause they charge mental amounts.