The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Hi,
First time posting on here. Wndered if anyone could offer me some advice on buying a breitling in Thailand, Firstly my new wife wants to get me a watch whilst we areon honeymoon, I have narrowed the selection down to three, all of which I have found over here; transocean chrono LE for £4676, transocean chrono non LE for £4130, or the superocean chrono 44 for £3140. All of them with a mesh bracelet.

My problem is choosing which one firstly (this is the nice problem), secondly what the deal is with bringing it back to the UK, if this is a gift from my wife do we need to declare it? And the next part will probably garner a few negative comments, but how risky is not declaring it, has anyone got any experience of buying in Asia and going through UK customs? I have checked with Mappin and Webb at heathrow who only have the transocean non LE for £5040 so as you see if i don't have to pay tax and duty it's a substantial difference.

Any advice would be appreciated, abuse as regards not paying duty is not, we are both hard working tax payers nowhere near being millionaires so a thousand pounds is a big deal!

Thanks

It's a tricky one. As far as HMRC are concerned, you should declare it, and pay duty at the correct rate, plus import VAT! They consider not paying it as smuggling

Now, I bought two of my Breitlings duty & VAT free in Jersey CI, (not at the same time I might add) and brought them back in without declaring them ( whoooo ... I'm a smuggler now ) and wore them on the plane and through the airport. I made sure i didn't attract any attention with lots of duty free bags, and we had fairly light luggage, so I figured I doubt they'd ask, and I just walked out via the green channel (though there wasn't a customs official in sight in either the red or green channels either time I might add). I did however post the boxes, manuals and receipts back though, but it was probably easier from Jersey than you'd find from Thailand.

I suppose your alternative to avoid fairly punitive taxes on a £4k purchase is to forego the box which is bulky and probably too easy for an eagle-eyed tax spook to spot, and to hide the receipt and manuals in other holiday documentation. Unless you plan to bring back twice your tobacco and booze allowance, and intend to smuggle in prohibited substances, in which case you deserve to get pulled out of the line for a 'thorough examination' and as long as you don't look shifty, weighted down with lots of luggage that 'could' hide smuggled goods, you'll probably be ok. Just look like normal Brit holidaymakers/honeymooners wanting to get home after a long flight..... Of course, I'm certainly not endorsing depriving the UK Government of your hard-earned cash, as we really don't pay enough in taxes here do we

Good luck with the wedding, and good luck with the purchase.

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Have
2019 B55 Exospace on Titanium bracelet
2014 SuperAvenger II Military LE
Had
2013 Avenger Seawolf SS yellow Arabic dial
2010 Aerospace Avantage black dial & Co-pilot
2007 Aerospace Repetition Minutes
2003 Superocean
2001 Chronospace

hi,

thanks so much for the advice, having considered all the factors i think its going to be safer to just deal with an authorised dealer back in the UK, i don't want to run the risk with the customs, and at least ill know for sure that everything is street legal when buying the watch,

cheers

Good call.

I'm a bit surprised at the ... Um ... Candor of the other post. Not exactly from the breitlingsource playbook.


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SHARKMAN