When I've had items delivered that I thought should be stung but weren't they were marked something like "gift" or "samples" and the value of the goods has been miss-quoted to be about £30 (but this would really cause problems if there was a miss-hap and you needed to claim on postal-insurance for some reason). More recently have just got stuff shipped to work thinking they might foot any duty bill thinking it was possibly work-related

but, fear that anything large enough to need surface shipping will more than likely be hit no matter what.

like DDR said, if the item is marked gift then it wont be charged but otherwise there isnt a way around it

as said before, items marked with low value or as a gift should pass through customs OK

aswell as these am sure if something is labelled as either a return / damaged goods, you wont pay import tax!

all of the info on import tax & customs duty is on www.hmrc.gov.uk, but its a rite arse on to find what you need! it will tell you though was is exempt from import tax if you can be bothered to search