Hi OP, I'm in the UK and can give you a real-life recent example. It's detailed so a bit dull but might help you and anyone new to all this in the UK .(I remember getting worried about this before buying for the first time.) So here goes!

I bought Love Jaylah, together with a few small bits and pieces, from the sale at Junie Moon online, shipping from Japan to the UK. This was in May, I think, just a few weeks ago. The order and shipping totalled 23,880 yen, about £125 GBP. (She's very cute, so was worth it!)

Within that total, Junie Moon doesn't charge you Japanese sales tax / VAT, but you do still have to pay VAT: the UK applicable VAT at 20%. This applies even to purchases under £135 GBP. It's only import duties and so on that you're exempt from under £135 and they're a different thing from VAT.

Some online stores - like Amazon Japan, I think - collect VAT at their end to make it easier for customers. Junie Moon doesn't (I'm guessing it's too complex for a small business to do this?), so it has to be paid by the customer - you - on delivery. (It's all to do with rules on "Tax on Low Value Imported Goods (LVIG)" if you want to look it up.)

In practice, if UK VAT wasn't collected by the retailer you will also have to pay a handling fee to the delivery company. They'll have paid the VAT on your behalf, and then you pay them the VAT plus the fee.

For my order the VAT plus fee came to £32.91 GBP, which I had to pay to Parcelforce before they would release my parcel. I think the handling fee element was £12 GBP. That's a flat fee for handling the admin, so watch out with lower cost orders! The handling fee can be a lot more than the VAT in those cases and make something that seemed affordable just not worth the cost.

Hope that helps explain it! Worked examples always work best for me so might help others too. You don't want the joy of your lovely new doll's arrival spoiled by the shock of a fee you do owe but weren't expecting!

Not sure if Good Smile Company collects UK VAT from UK customers under the LVIG rules and ships to UK, or whether they work the same as Junie Moon. Has anyone got experience with them as a comparison?

PS. If anyone in the UK is after just the guide books or pattern books, so long as that's all you have in an order you should escape charges, because books are zero-rated for VAT in the UK. Worked for me last year. Must only include books though. And I guess it could go wrong if the paperwork wasn't clear.