Import Duty charges

[ksbman]

I am trying to compile a list of the Customs duty that different countries charge for postal imports.

If you know what your country imposes or have a link please post it here.

What I have been able to find so far is-

New Zealand has no revenue collection for goods less than $50.

Canada charges for goods above $20 but gifts less than $60 are not charged.

UK charges for goods over 18 (I have no symbol for Pounds) but does not charge for gifts under 36# (wrong Pounds symbol).

Australia looks like $1000 is the cutoff for charges. Can this be right?

Any help you can give me will be appreciated. In order to bend the rules you must first know the rules.

 

[koala]

I hope I don't confuse anyone. A year or so ago, I bought a car headunit from a friend in the US. It cost USD$349, and after curreny conversion it's ~AUD$800 plus postage.

The item was declared ~USD$380 and I was charged a custom duty of AUD$80. As far as I know it's a 10% of GST. That was the last time I paid custom duties. Never any custom for any of my lights, but all purchases were under US$300.

As long as I know, Keith can probably send stuff as gift as long as the custom doesn't get suspicious. IMHO, a better choice is to declare goods a lower price to avoid tax.

Vince.

 

[zorba]

The greek tax office charges VAT at 18% and an additional 2% for various import charges.
But you can always label the goods as gift or something similar, or show a value of less than say 70 or 80 USD and skip the charges...

 

[Tomas]

... of course if the declared value is waaaay too low, the customs types noses start twitching. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif

Another problem with too low a declaration value is that it limits what you can insure the 'thing' for.

 

[Spectre]

For Norway: No charges for values less than 200 NOK (=$26.6 USD at current exchange rate). Charges for values above are 24% VAT and handling fees (usually like $20).

Bjorn

 

[mattheww50]

Japan I think is 3%, most of the Gulf states are 4%.

As a practical matter, the courier companies do their own customs clearance, and as a result are legally obligated to collect any applicable duties or taxes over the gift limit, and usually charge a substantial administrative fee for the honor.

Postal shipment in theory are charged, but customs and excise have no legal obligation to do so, and consequently, often don't bother. This is particularly true if the shipment comes in Air Letter Post. These shipments cannot be insured, so customs assumes they must be of low value (they usually are, but are not necessarily). I have never seen duty or taxes imposed on air letter post shipments (max weight is 4 pounds, or 2 Kilo). I shipped literally thousands of dollars worth of laptop HDD's into Australia that way. Never paid a cent in GST or duty.

 

[Kristofg]

For belgium see web page
In general, every package ordered over the internet gets taxed. Packages declared as gifts are free from import duty up to 45 euros.

 

[ChrisA]

For Germany there's no customs charge for values less than 45 EUR and declared as gift.

Chris