Hi,

My mum's sent my daughter a dress for her birthday from the UK. The dress only cost about 700 Baht and cost my mum about 1,000 Baht to post it to Thailand. I went to the post office in Pattaya to collect it today, but they said I need to go to the post office in Banglamung tomorrow and pay almost 1,000 Baht in tax.

Does anyone have any ideas why the tax is so much?

Cheers,

Tax is based on cost plus freight. There is a very high tax (about 50% I think) on clothes as they are a protected product here. Once duty freight and tax are added 7% GST is then added.

Edited July 7, 201313 yr by harrry

It is not just tax: they assess customs duties on what is called CIF value (value of the item, freight cost, insurance charges) and if they are unknown or the customs folks feel that the declared costs are too small, they will place their own values on each of the categories, then then charge duties based on a chart which delineates the percentage to be assessed, which can vary among different items. Then they add VAT (7%) on top of all of that. It can get quite expensive.

My guess is the tax is about right...yolu are not getting robbed anyway.