Just wanted to thank the North American company, who shall remain nameless at this point, who sent me a shiny new ipod Shuffle as part of their latest marketing campaign. They’ve thoughtfully pre-loaded it with some podcasts discussing innovation under the tagline “Innovative Ideas Can Come From Everywhere”. I’m intrigued by the promotion and, of course, delighted to be sent a Shuffle (as a gadget fan it’s important to have one of everything).
Whilst I’m certainly completely in agreement with their chosen tagline (and it’s not very different from the one at the very top of my blog right now), I was more than a little disappointed to have to pay customs duty on the shipment before I was allowed to take delivery – and, at that point, I didn’t even know what was in the packet. £14.75 certainly isn’t much to pay for a Shuffle but it’s a funny way to get your customers endeared to your thinking.
I’ve asked them to hold off before shipping me anything else – imagine the duty on a grand piano – as I think it would prove they had great wisdom.
HMRC have been innovative with their revenue recovery, for certain :-)\”My wonder is, if it was a gift, then you paid nothing for it.If it cost nothing, how could there be any duty on it? And on that note, your honour, I rest my defence.\”Ian
hmrc creative with their tax rules? i\’m shocked. i guess they\’re trying to make up for all the missing trader losses by implementing the not missing resident policy.