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Christmas parcels confiscated in Revenue VAT clampdown
By Conor Ryan
CHRISTMAS presents sent through the post are being confiscated by the Revenue Commissioners until the recipients pay VAT charges and postal handling fees - or parcels are returned to sender.
Revenue has collected hundreds of thousands of euro from people
availing of cheaper CDs and DVDs on the internet by forcing them to pay customs duty and value added tax, plus a EUR5 post office fee on items bought from companies outside the EU and posted to this country.
Failure to pay the tariff means items are sent back.>
The charges can often amount to 50% or more of the item's original cost.
In order to detect offenders, Revenue is using its legal right to open any parcels which do not have an invoice attached to the outside of the package at mailing centres in Dublin, Cork, Athlone and Portlaoise.
According to Revenue, there has been an increase in the number of confiscations of packages containing CDs, DVDs and computer games arriving by post from Jersey, Hong Kong, China and the US and 235 such packages have been detained.
Duty and VAT collected amounted to EUR3,752 and 72 packages are stored at the letter post depot in Dublin.
"Portlaoise parcel-post office has collected EUR1.375 million in duty and VAT on parcels this year to date," a Revenue spokesman said.
"Revenue staff at our mailing centres in Dublin, Cork, Athlone and Portlaoise scan all third country post and parcels and raise charges as part of their normal routine work. All post is targeted."
He said An Post acts as its agent in processing parcels, but An Post pointed out that Revenue staff are working at the mailing centres.
Jersey is home to one of the most widely-used internet product
companies, Play.com while Hong Kong is home to CDWow.com.
Products bought from any internet product company outside the EU,including the likes of Amazon, would be subject to the taxation.
Play.com declined to comment but Dermott Jewell of the Consumers' Association of Ireland said the Revenue Commissioners are simply enforcing the law, something they have not done in past years, and consumers must be aware that they should pay tax on items worth over EUR45.
"Our advice would be not to have goods sent in bulk but to have them sent individually. If the Revenue sees a batch of 50 DVDs they are not going to think it is for personal use but for re-sale."
Bellafra