Fees/customs For Packages From Abroad

[d0ndela]

Hi

In lack of a better place to post this, here it comes in the general

We've purchased some products from China on four occasions, for private use (badminton rackets, tennis rackets, golf equipment and shoes/clothes). All packages was sent with EMS China.

- The package with the rackets we picked up at the post office and paid some fee, can't remember how much as it's soon a year ago.

- The first package with golf equipment we went to pick up at the post office, but was sent to the customs office which is a 1 hour drive away. We went there and had to spend ½ day trying to talk some sense into the people there, we ended up giving them an estimated price for the products we bought and I think we paid 17% of that or something.

- The second golf package came fine to the post office, we did not pay anything additional when picking it up.

- And then yesterday we went to the post office again to pick up our shoes. We paid 1977 THB, inside the package was 5 pairs of shoes and 1 polo shirt. We had gotten the factory to write "samples without any commision" outside the box, and put an invoice inside saying the total cost was 0 USD as it was samples. The package had been opened in customs we could see, so they had looked inside.

Now I could see on the package list I signed that the amount I paid was printed on there, and similar high numbers were listed on all the other packages as well, so it's not because I feel like the guy there cheated us, but just interested in actually knowing the rules for these fees.

Do they base the custom on an estimated value of the products and then a fixed percentage or how does it work?

Are there some tips on what to do next time to pay as low a custom as possible?

[p_brownstone]

Quite seriously - there are no rules on this at all, it depends entirely on the whim of the Customs Officer who examines that particular package on that particular day.

My wife occasionally buys items on eBay to be shipped to Thailand and then re-sells them here - a Commercial transaction.

She will, on other occasions, buy similar items as presents for our children - a personal transaction.

No matter how many permutations of splitting Shipments into smaller packages, declaring the actual Value, under-valuing the Invoice (when the Seller will agree to that of course), listing the package as "Commercial items", "Samples", "Unsolicited Gift" whatever, there is no known (to us) combination of any circumstance that will guarantee a Duty Free import. Even when an Invoice is included in the Shipment, it is arbitrarily ignored by the Customs Officer who will place his own estimate of Value on the contents, then apply another completely arbitrary Import Duty on that value.

As an example, we recently bought about Baht 60,000.- of items from one Vendor on eBay and had it shipped in 4 separate packages, all of approximately the same weight (4 Kgs), size (about 1.5 cubic feet) and total value. (In this case the Vendor insisted on enclosing an Invoice for each Shipment at the actual Cost we paid). The first 2 Shipments arrived trouble free and were delivered to our home by the regular Postman, no charges whatsoever, although both had obviously been opened prior to delivery to us – presumably by Customs here. The 3rd shipment was assessed for Import Duty and VAT at a total of just under Baht 1,200.- , (which had no mathematical relationship, that we could ascertain, to the Value declared on the enclosed Invoice). We received an official notification of this assessment in the mail, went to pay at the local Post Office and received the package within minutes (all payments were properly receipted).

4th Package, yet to arrive - who knows!

Patrick