I've ordered a lot of Defender "stuff" lately from overseas. I also frequently use the amazon & ebay sites in the uk. I've only gotten a notice twice to pay the duty tax. First for the bull bars coming from Australia. I paid ASAP because I thought it was part of the transaction and was only about $100. The second time was a $50 shirt from France. The duty tax was $50! Needless to say, I refused delivery. In my mind, there is NO consistency, rhyme or reason for it.

 

Must have been a pretty nice shirt.

 

T-shirt that said: Mecanicien a col rouge.

 

Love hot chicken !!!

 

Odd thread to resurrect out of the blue. One of my businesses imports at wholesale from 3 counties and and resells at wholesale to the US 3 other countries.

This is an incredibly boring fascinating topic. Really, this is going to be a snoozer...

When you export, you provide information to customs in the destination country. Country of origin/manufacture, value, shipping value, and a tariff code. All of this is required for each individual item.

All of these factors determine the tariff and it's not just one tax. To clear customs, DHL may be required to remit, on your behalf, a mix of national, regional, provincial, and local taxes so it's not even the same from one city to the next.

Tariff code is incredibly specific and can be subject to interpretation by the authorities. There are agents and attorneys who exclusively exist to determine classifications and get things through customs predictably and quickly. People like me get written opinions from CBP as to the classification codes of products I move in advance so I don't have delays and penalties. Of you look at US codes, you can see why. They're complicated. They are supposed to be harmonized between countries but some countries add their own code suffixes and, of course, it's open to interpretation.

Need to export a watch? 35 pages to determine your code based on numerous factors.
https://hts.usitc.gov/current

So PowerfulUK has Ian in shipping asking Vivian in operations to see if Nigel or Neil in purchasing can tell them if this elastic cargo net fits a commercial or private vehicle, if it is made of synthetic material, and if this particular one came from China or Taiwan so he can fill out the customs papers. If Ian gets it wrong, PowerfulUK can get fined. The import taxes will be different based on Ian's description.

Sometimes it's a crap shoot and you just do your best. Sometimes you do it all right and get pushed around by a CBP officer.

Either way, PowerfulUK hits you for a fee to match their local VAT as a handling fee. And we complain about it. And life goes on. Now off to the beach for me and, if you read all this drool, you should wonder why and go do something fun too.

 

If you buy something which is shipped to you from outside the US, you’re generally not going to see any customs duty if the value is under $800.

 

I ordered a Red Winch from the UK (about 2800) and paid no duty nor VAT but shipping was a little less than VAT. Also ordered a winch tray and light bar (2000) from Ruel Sports in Belgium and again paid no duty and no VAT. One was shipped DHL and the other FedEx