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Old 28 Jan 2021, 18:26 (Ref:4031725)   #2648
grantp
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grantp should be qualifying in the top 3 on the gridgrantp should be qualifying in the top 3 on the gridgrantp should be qualifying in the top 3 on the grid
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Originally Posted by terence View Post
Yes Grant,hope my bit helps with a gallon or two.😅
Nearly a couple of decades ago I had a paid for trip to a conference in Florida, an annual event run by a software outfit whose products I had been using for a while and where I had spent quite a bit of time offering assistance to other users via their forum.

I had worked out a way of undertaking some tricky data extraction task using obscure bit of logic and at the conference presented these options to the attendees.

What I did not know until it happened was that the company had decided to inaugurate an award that year for non-employees who had been offering user community support in the spirit of another chap who had been especially inspiring but had unfortunately passed away the previous year.

So there I was travelling light, returning via multiple flights and quick stay with a former colleague in Washington DC and suddenly I have a significantly sized and relatively heavy block pf laser engraved glass like material to lug around in addition to the conference material and some stuff provided by another of the presenters.

The company kindly offered to ship the piece, well packaged (so a largish box bit some middle weight assessment) via Fedex (iirc) and being unfamiliar with such a thing declared a value based on the cost to them. Which put it over the Duty threshold at the time and resulted in contact from Fedex demanding payment.

The value should have been Gift and £0 to be realistic since it had no intrinsic resale value.

As I recall we had a 3 party discussion about how to sensibly deal with this and there was an eventual resolution that ultimately led to the package arriving. It took a while.

Some parts of the world are very generous with samples and gifts.

I guess one has to become familiar with the rules although at any process change point, like now and again in Summer when the EU -allegedly - will be catching up with their own legislation, one might expect greater attention simply because of the changes.

Might be at least a year or two before things start to run more smoothly. Maybe not more cheaply though. Digital tax collection free at the point of collection as far a Govt. is concerned is far too tempting to manage with a light touch.
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