Tag Archives: posturinn

More excessive customs and handling fees

Bought a somewhat fancy keyboard. (more on that later) Bought some custom made icelandic keys to go on it. Paid regular VAT on both. Bought some plastic inserts to help mount the new custom keys on the new keyboard. Got charged 7.5% customs. What? What is this duty for? It’s certainly not protecting any local industry. And it’s not to cover recycling of the parts or their packaging, there’s a separate charge for that. Still, only 7.5% still “not much” in the scheme of things. And then of course, the ever delightful hammer of icelandic online shopping, the flat rate 550kr “handling charge” of Iceland post. Effective net percentage on top for “fees”? 72.4% That’s unreasonable. I’m not complaining about VAT, (even though, because too many companies in europe don’t know how to take VAT off to send to Iceland, outside the EU, I’d already paid VAT in another country for this order) I’m complaining about the excessive handling charges with no alternative path. Good job Icelandic Customs, they legally allow “any” charge by the handler. Of course, I can’t control what shipping partner my parts are eventually delivered by, so I have no way of avoiding this. Iceland Post offers no way of preprocessing or providing more information to reduce or eliminate the charge either. It’s simply an impediment on trade, with no gains for anyone other than the postal service.20160630-customs-keyboard-parts-real