Tax On Goods Into Thailand : Help Please

[ianf]

The government may be crowing about increased tax collection in Thailand but here's how they are doing it:

Delivery from Amazon:

Goods: Books 46.09 (UK pounds) 2268 baht

DVDS: 29.98 1474 baht

Freight: 1509 baht

Tax: 2268 baht

I do not understand this at all. Why should I pay all this tax when in fact at 37% (in 7% VAT) the maximum tax should have been 546 baht.

This was a UPS delivery. Who do I complain to? How do I sort this out. Or is it all part of the Government policy to increase tax collection.

[inthepink]

Is this tax that Amazon has withheld or were you actually charged that by Thai customs?

(At 37%, duty would have been 1942.87 as freight charges are included I believe. Even without freight, 37% works out to 1384.54. How on earth did you come up with the figure of ฿546?)

Edited December 22, 2012 by inthepink

[johna]

Why not download this stuff, I'm sold on ebook readers.

[inthepink]

Me too actually. At first I found it hard to make the change but now I think I may even prefer them to physical books.

[Forethat]

It'd be interesting to know how many books and DVDs was in the shipment...?

[inthepink]

Having done my sums now, I'm guessing that books are duty free and you have calculated duty on the cost of the DVDs alone. Freight should be included but the figure is still far too high. However, if this is the figure that appears on your Amazon invoice then it has nothing to do with the Thai government and everything to do with the freight company.

Edited December 22, 2012 by inthepink

[Forethat]

Having done my sums now, I'm guessing that books are duty free and you have calculated duty on the cost of the DVDs alone. Freight should be included but the figure is still far too high. However, if this is the figure that appears on your Amazon invoice then it has nothing to do with the Thai government and everything to do with the freight company.

Purely speculative. You have no clue what so ever if the tax is being wrongfully applied or if this is once again a case where the person who receives the shipment expects the tax to be collected based on price rather than value. The tax could be wrong, but we dont know that.

[inthepink]

Having done my sums now, I'm guessing that books are duty free and you have calculated duty on the cost of the DVDs alone. Freight should be included but the figure is still far too high. However, if this is the figure that appears on your Amazon invoice then it has nothing to do with the Thai government and everything to do with the freight company.

Purely speculative. You have no clue what so ever if the tax is being wrongfully applied or if this is once again a case where the person who receives the shipment expects the tax to be collected based on price rather than value. The tax could be wrong, but we dont know that.

My sums are speculative, yes. Hence my use of the word "guessing". However, if the figure is on the Amazon invoice, it is fact and not speculation that this figure was decided by the freight company and not Thai customs. If this is the case, the tax hasn't even been applied yet. Edited December 22, 2012 by inthepink

[Forethat]

In case someone missed that; books are only subject to duty if the value exceeds USD 150. But this is where things usually goes terribly wrong; the naive farang expects the duty to be based on the PRICE rather than the value, which are two completely different things. I'm not saying this is what's happened in this case, but it could be

[Forethat]

However, if the figure is on the Amazon invoice, it is fact and not speculation that this figure was decided by the freight company and not Thai customs. If this is the case, the tax hasn't even been applied yet.

As I said, tax is not collected based on prices (what you claim could have been in the invoice).

[NeverSure]

Do the Thais collect that tax from you, or did Amazon collect it in the invoice? In other words, do you pay the tax or does Amazon?

I have heard of shippers like Amazon taking a wild azz guess at what the tax would be and adding enough to be sure, and then refunding to the customer when the dust settled.

Any chance of that?

[Forethat]

Do the Thais collect that tax from you, or did Amazon collect it in the invoice? In other words, do you pay the tax or does Amazon?

I have heard of shippers like Amazon taking a wild azz guess at what the tax would be and adding enough to be sure, and then refunding to the customer when the dust settled.

Any chance of that?

The tax is collected by the Thai Customs http://www.customs.go.th/wps/wcm/connect/custen/home/homewelcome

The goods is put on hold until all duties are paid. For this reason the tax authorities issues an invoice and this invoice has to be paid before the goods is released. This is where 99% of all farangs get it terribly wrong when the dispatcher (FedEx, DHL, UPS etc.) forwards the cost and charges the recipient - they believe that it's the dispatcher who's doing something dodgy. You only have to search on this forum and you'll see that the average perception is that the dispatcher issues the invoice, and that they do it in an attempt to scam.

[Hedghog]

Could be a case of double pricing.

It would be free if you are Thai.

[Konini]

I had a bizare one a couple of weeks ago. A friend sent something in a Jiffy bag from Australia. On the bag she put Contents:Cosmetic, Value $100. It wasn't that much, she does it out of habit. I had to pay 7 (SEVEN) baht. It would cost more to process than total value .

[mistephenso]

Do the Thais collect that tax from you, or did Amazon collect it in the invoice? In other words, do you pay the tax or does Amazon?

I have heard of shippers like Amazon taking a wild azz guess at what the tax would be and adding enough to be sure, and then refunding to the customer when the dust settled.

Any chance of that?

The tax is collected by the Thai Customs http://www.customs.g...ome/homewelcome

The goods is put on hold until all duties are paid. For this reason the tax authorities issues an invoice and this invoice has to be paid before the goods is released. This is where 99% of all farangs get it terribly wrong when the dispatcher (FedEx, DHL, UPS etc.) forwards the cost and charges the recipient - they believe that it's the dispatcher who's doing something dodgy. You only have to search on this forum and you'll see that the average perception is that the dispatcher issues the invoice, and that they do it in an attempt to scam.

I have had to pay large amounts when using DHL and UPS too - I think you get charged way more when using an international shipping company!

I was also told at my local post office that they also charged differently depending on weight. In other words, the OP shipping a load of heavy books is going to get charged more than me shipping smaller, lighter, items of the same 'value'.

The official rules on this are here (only in Thai though).

They make for some seriously heavy reading, and my Thai is certainly not good enough to understand all of it... What is interesting though, is the last section when viewed using Google translate:

Eight. . things to note in the customs value declaration.

General question. Did you know that you have to just trust in God.

So, just trust in God when giving the customs valuation of your goods and you will be fine...!

[Benjie]

Books are only Duty Free if you import them by themselves I thought. If you mix in other media then you pay duty.

Also the calculation of tax and duty works like this

(Cost + Shipping Cost)* Duty +7%

[noise]

Do the Thais collect that tax from you, or did Amazon collect it in the invoice? In other words, do you pay the tax or does Amazon? I have heard of shippers like Amazon taking a wild azz guess at what the tax would be and adding enough to be sure, and then refunding to the customer when the dust settled. Any chance of that?

The tax is collected by the Thai Customs http://www.customs.g...ome/homewelcome The goods is put on hold until all duties are paid. For this reason the tax authorities issues an invoice and this invoice has to be paid before the goods is released. This is where 99% of all farangs get it terribly wrong when the dispatcher (FedEx, DHL, UPS etc.) forwards the cost and charges the recipient - they believe that it's the dispatcher who's doing something dodgy. You only have to search on this forum and you'll see that the average perception is that the dispatcher issues the invoice, and that they do it in an attempt to scam.

I have ordered numerous items from Amazon U.S. and Amazon estimates the duties and, itemizing my bill, charges me as part of the over all purchase/shipping costs. Everything has been delivered to the house by DHL and no attempt made to collect additional duties. A few weeks later I usually get a partial refund of the duties (maybe 10%+/-). The duties have always seemed reasonable (e.g. ~20% on a $300 Kindle DX).