Tax & Duty for flashlights importing?

just be curious.

i've sent dozens of lights to US and none has been charged duty or tax, normally i claim the value for $20-$50.

anyone bought a light from other country declared $100+? got any problems with that?

i just checked on UPS shipping website, when i creat a shipment to US, it shows anything worth less than $200 is "low value", $201 and above is "dutiable", can i assume that anything less than $200 is OK? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif

thanks

Flashlights are high duty item coming into the USA, I went through this excercise with the Barbolight HID GB. Calling them Portable HID lighting put them in a much lower import duty classification, and was a legitimate description.

Technically anything with a value above 50USD is subject to duty, as a practical matter, little less than 200USD is not likely to be charged, and in fact almost anything that comes in as small packet air/air letter post is not likely to get charged no matter it's value. Since in the USA, small packet/air letter post (up to 4 pounds, or 2Kg for the rest of the world) cannot be insured, it is assumed to be of minimal value, and nobody even looks AT the declaration. A customs dog may sniff the parcel, but that is as much scrutiny as it likely to get. There are just way way to many of them for customs to bother with.


I used to ship laptop drives to Australia that way when they were much more valuable. Ducked a 22% import duty because nobody bothered to look at the declaration.

My advice is when in doubt it, mail it. Barring the truly unusual, it is almost never subject to import duty coming into the USA (or into many countries).

That's so unfair. Ever since 9/11 Canada Customs has gone into overdrive checking packages. Prior to 9/11, it was the norm for even fairly large packages to show up at home duty free. Now, I've been charged 75¢ for a CD I got off ebay. Of course, it's never just 75¢, we need to add the $5 customs charges for looking at your package. So now a $3 CD becomes a $9 CD. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banghead.gif
The buggers have even gone so far as to OPEN sealed CDs of mine.