Providing receipts for items being brought into the UK

My husband wants to know if anyone has ever forged receipts so as to not pay duty on items less than 6 months old?  How can they know the difference between an item that is 4 months old or 6 months old.  Also, if you pay by credit card; do they ask to see the statement? 

I have never been asked about that.  Who even keeps receipts for stuff older than 6 months old?

My husband wants to know if anyone has ever forged receipts so as to not pay duty on items less than 6 months old? 

No.

How can they know the difference between an item that is 4 months old or 6 months old.

Not sure that they could.  All of the stuff I shipped over was way more than 6 months old - more than 4 years old actually.  But the shipment did include a fair number of books that were as new -- books that I'd bought in the past but not read, etc.  My stuff cleared customs this month just fine with no worries.  I doubt they opened up the boxes to look at it, to be honest, and my inventory was quite detailed.

Now if I can just get my stuff delivered from the British shipping company that has it right now - I'll be happy.

In all the international moves we've had, I've never been asked to prove the age of my stuff. 

My friends did though, but they had bought large appliances right before they crossed the border.  And they paid duty on it.  They couldn't really hide those and it was pretty obvious they were new. 

I declared a couple of things that were new, but wasn't charged duty. (They were small and not especially expensive.)

We brought our new printer as luggage so that it would come in under our personal allowance.

Mrs R -Oh man, you packed your stuff up well before me- mine was packed up at x-mas and was delievered to me yesterday!  Bummer for you!

Elynor- I brought my printer on as luggage too  ;-)  Some strange looks you get though with a printer for luggage...

Mrs R -Oh man, you packed your stuff up well before me- mine was packed up at x-mas and was delievered to me yesterday!  Bummer for you!

Elynor- I brought my printer on as luggage too  ;-)  Some strange looks you get though with a printer for luggage...

You guys must have good printers...I can't wait to chuck mine as far away as possible  maybe I just have bad luck with printers - they never seem to work properly for me. I'm dreading having to pack up my many many heavy textbooks :-S when the time comes.

Elynor- I brought my printer on as luggage too  ;-)  Some strange looks you get though with a printer for luggage...

Actually, the printer box was stuffed inside an even BIGGER box with some other stuff, so no printer-specific strange looks.

You should have seen the strange looks I got when I flew with a box of plants as carry-on luggage!!!

You guys must have good printers...I can't wait to chuck mine as far away as possible  maybe I just have bad luck with printers - they never seem to work properly for me.

We bought a new dual-voltage printer to bring with us, because it was half the price in the US. Of course, then we had major, MAJOR issues with replacing the £@$% ink cartridges, so I'm not sure it was worth it...