alexist

I have to laugh all those spoilsports pointing out to would-be US visitors that the duty free allowance is only £145 (Gordon Brown wants to raise it but it has to be done by the entire EU). The duty free limit is a joke. First of all, I have never been inspected coming through Heathrow and I come through with huge suitcases. In fact I have only once even seen customs inspectors in the green lane. Second, duty is only chargeable on new items. All the shopper has to do is take off the tags/remove the packaging--then HMRC has no way of assessing duty on anything. In some countries, you have to list major electronic items when you leave the country, so they can compare it to what you bring back, but the UK has no such tracking system, so you can go to town. They have no way of proving you bought the items on your trip (unless you bring back something like a PS3 that can't be boguht in the UK) and are liable for duty and/or VAT. If you're really paranoid, just make the items look slightly used (rumple the clothes, scuff shoe bottoms, set up the laptop, take a couple of photos on the digital camera).

Someone from HMRC even admitted they "take a common sense approach" which is the polite way of saying "it's not worth our time to charge duty on iPods, we're looking for smugglers".

Coleen McLoughlin got caught because she bought £20K worth of stuff and left the damn tags on! Idiot.