ordering books Amazon in States any catches?

[1dilemma]

if I order books from Amazon market place from supplier listed as in the States are there any catches? (apart from delivery times)
Will I get stuck with taxes/import/customs duties?
Thanks (sorry if in wrong place!)

I don't know the exact duty rate, but they are usually in the region of 3% (you can hunt around the HMRC website but it is not easy). Duty is charged on the shipping too - have a look at the US Postal Service website. Amazon sellers should be good at getting the best postal rate (there are really good book rates in the US, but I'm not sure that they apply to overseas airmail).

If the book is just a book - no toy, CD or other gimmick attached - then it should be zero-rated for VAT.

If the value of your shipment is less than £18, the duty charges are waived. If you do have charges, HMRC uses a third party to collect (Parcelforce, I think) and they have a fee for the service.

Have found the real bugger about import duty is the extra handling charge the post office slap on top of it. tis very

You shouldn't be charged anything for books - I buy from Amazon in the US quite a lot and have never had a problem. Anything else and you are fair game - and it can be very expensive once they have charged VAT on the part of the journey inside the UK and such like nonsense!

I've never been charged duty on books from the states. The only downside is postage; airmail is expensive, while surface mail is cheap but takes about six weeks.

Amazon uk sells quite a lot of US books on the same terms as books published here, though not everything will be available, it's worth checking first.

The other thing to know is exchange rates have been pretty kind to us for a long time but they've recently changed a lot, so buying things from the US will be more expensive than it was a few months ago.