Sales tax on the original sale in the US was paid when 1st purchased. The US seller does not have any option to send free of tax so in effect you end up paying tax twice and that was never the purpose. If you buy a new item in say Australia for shipment to the UK then the sale price will be free of any taxes, of course that gets paid by the importer upon arrival so tax is only paid once. How about this, you buy in the US at say $500.00 ask seller to send to a friend within the US, no sales tax paid. Your friend then sends it/them to you, there's no sale from him/her to you so value is only a nominal amount (for a 2nd hand item) it's gets a value of $25.00 you pay no tax (here in Belgium anyway). The EEU policy (yes folks you're still in it) is that tax is only paid once so you may be technically breaking but not in spirit. Well, that's what I tell myself anyway. Lastly I once (and only once) bought a gaggle of expensive records out of a basement from an estate UK sales value about $4.000 (3 copies of the Trends:-) I paid about $400.00 for some 200 records what do you do, declare the $4000 or $400 ? If you say 400 then that could be construed as fraud.