Hello Premmington,MatF.Parm. Years ago tried lots of "baccies" but now very occasionally, This American one I really do like, Its Cherry cavendish by Smokers Pride, The price over there is peanuts, Can be found for around $17 dollars for 12oz, Cherry cavendish in the UK is around £8-00 for 50grams which isn't even an ounce, Even with about £40-00 import duty it is still excellent value for 12 months puffing,
I would think that tobacconist shops in the UK that stock USA tobacco, obviously have to pay the duty, but Im quite sure that their profit will bring it up to UK prices or even more, I hope that I'm wrong.
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I buy a lot of stuff from the states -mostly car related. Duty seems a bit of a lottery for medium value items, sometimes stuff comes through with no duty payable. If the seller sends it USPS, the UK end is likely to be handled by Parcelfarce, they charge a "handling fee" on top of the duty, VAT etc. which they collect on HMRC's behalf. They will want paying before they will deliver your package. In theory, they send you a postcard with details of the amount owing. In reality, my experience has been that you will need to pick up the info from the Parcelfarce website by entering the USPS tracking number which will be mapped to a Parcelfarce number that you can then search on.
As said, duty is payable on the item, then VAT is payable on the item with both the duty and shipping cost added. Your $17 baccy will probably be some way north of £70 by the time you've paid HMRC's share.