I've now checked the HMRC website. These are the rules: when sending a gift from non EU countries to the UK, the value must be less than £36.00, based on rates on their website. That's now. Until the end of 2012 the limit was £40.00. If you declare a limit that's higher than that they can charge you duty - in this case, the value was a matter of pence more than that, so that's why they picked on this package. In addition, because this was sent express delivery, they added the cost of postage to the value being taxed.

Nice of them, huh? And then FedEx add their own charges.

I'm considering what to do. At the moment, writing to my MP comes high on the list, as it seems totally wrong that I can be asked to pay a significant sum for something when I have had no choice whatsoever in what it is or how it's been delivered. It also seems wrong that my generous Santa has already paid a huge sum to ship the package to me in the first place and yet this doesn't encompass any of the essential charges. The legal situation, however, is as I've described above.