Sending a gift to France. Recipient paying tax.

[Morethantimeandmorethanlove]

I have googled this and it seems the recipient will have to pay tax on my gift . Has anyone had experience of this. ? I don’t want my friend to have to pay anything. Any way round this. ?

Anything over a value of GB£60 gets taxed and the paperwork to/from Europe is shocking.
I’ve got around it by using a different nationality Amazon account and letting them deal with the delivery.

Yes it's totally crap. One way round is to send the present from amazon.fr but obviously that restricts what you can gift.

Taxed on everything from the UK. And have to give the delivery person cash. It's shit. Cheaper and quicker to order from the US now.

I have relatives in France and Germany and now only order things from French/german websites so we don’t run into this issue.

yes, they will have to pay tax, plus they may need the original invoice to prove the amount paid. I had something sent recently from the UK that cost €59 and the tax bill here was €53. I rejected it!!

Yes, usually a handling charge on top of the customs fee. Is it something you could order from Amazon? Same login details as the UK account, just use the appropriate site for the country.

To avoid your French friend paying tax you should mark it as NO VALUE instead of what it is actually worth and be sure it is marked as a GIFT.

You only pay tax on declared value.

It’s been this way since Brexit. I’ve stopped sending presents. 🎁

Always do through amazon precisely to avoid this. There’s even a gift wrap option.

Thank you all for the info. Very helpful.

I was wondering about things you can’t buy through Amazon.

If it’s food you can use the website British Corner Shop which has relocated to the Netherlands to avoid import tax. I buy my Christmas supplies from them.

If it’s something unique like a hand-knitted jumper then definitely declare it as “no commercial value” .