copp@petrus.UUCP (08/30/85)
I would like to pass on a warning to people who are considering buying things abroad and having them shipped home. In London we bought two sports jackets (about $200). We naively asked to have them shipped. We paid about $20 to the store, AND an unexpected 18% duty when the package was delivered. If we had hand-carried the jackets, there would have been no $20 fee, and no duty (we brought back less than $400-per-person). In Paris it was even worse--the store fee for $250 worth of stuff was $45. On the bright side, we did not have to lug large packages across Europe, and the Value Added Tax was deducted on-the-spot, avoiding paperwork and delays. On the other hand, we could have bought another suitcase and hired a lot of porters to carry it with the $150 we wasted.
kolling@decwrl.UUCP (Karen Kolling) (08/31/85)
> I would like to pass on a warning to people who are considering > buying things abroad and having them shipped home. > In London we bought two sports jackets (about $200). We naively > asked to have them shipped. We paid about $20 to the store, > AND an unexpected 18% duty when the package was delivered. I shipped home several hundred dollars worth of stuff, including wool sweaters, from Denmark a few months ago. I've forgotten the shipping charges (not large enough to make an impression, I assume), but no duty was collected. This must vary by country of origin, or else US Snail slipped up. Maybe someone who knows the rules could enlighten us.
tristan@idi.UUCP (N. Starner) (09/01/85)
I recently shipped a lot of stuff home from Germany, and not only was it cheap to ship, they collected no duty from me at home. In Hungary, however, it would have been the same price to ship things as it was to buy them. I guess it really depends on the country. Does anyone have any more input as to which countries charge duty on the U.S end? I am about to go to New Zealand and Australia and I would like to know. Also Japan next year.
smh@rduxb.UUCP (henning) (09/03/85)
**** **** From the keys of Steve Henning, AT&T Bell Labs, Reading, PA rduxb!smh > > In London we bought two sports jackets (about $200). We naively > > asked to have them shipped. We paid about $20 to the store, > > AND an unexpected 18% duty when the package was delivered. > > I shipped home several hundred dollars worth of stuff, including wool > sweaters, from Denmark a few months ago. I've forgotten the shipping > charges (not large enough to make an impression, I assume), but no > duty was collected. This must vary by country of origin, or else US > Snail slipped up. Maybe someone who knows the rules could enlighten us. Check with Customs, but the rule you want used to read like this: You are allowed to send home duty free $50 per day in merchandise to each different address. What we do is have friends agree to accept packages from us while we are gone. We send each package to a different address to avoid having any 2 packages come to the same address on the same day. While in Australia and New Zealand we accumulated books and tourist information which we didn't want to carry home so we sent it home by the cheapest way possible. It worked out great.
greg@olivee.UUCP (Greg Paley) (09/03/85)
> I would like to pass on a warning to people who are considering > buying things abroad and having them shipped home. > > In London we bought two sports jackets (about $200). We naively > asked to have them shipped. We paid about $20 to the store, > AND an unexpected 18% duty when the package was delivered. > If we had hand-carried the jackets, there would have been no $20 fee, > and no duty (we brought back less than $400-per-person). > > In Paris it was even worse--the store fee for $250 worth of stuff was $45. > > On the bright side, we did not have to lug large packages across > Europe, and the Value Added Tax was deducted on-the-spot, avoiding > paperwork and delays. On the other hand, we could have bought another > suitcase and hired a lot of porters to carry it with the $150 we wasted. This doesn't always work out so badly. My wife and I bought a set of Rosenthal china in Munich (from Haertle - on the passageway between Stachus and Marienplatz). Not only was the price about 1/3 of what we would have paid at S.Christian of Copenhagen in San Francisco, but they sent the china in a fairly large number of small (well packaged) individual packages each of which they declared as having a value of $25.00. U.S. customs opened one of these and decided it was actually worth $100.00, therefore charging us duty on it, but the rest came duty-free. This was also a case where we could not have possibly brought it with us in our already bulging suitcases. - Greg Paley
lizv@tektools.UUCP (Liz Vaughan) (09/04/85)
I think it must vary with country, but I've had no problems with buying stuff and taking it to the post office myself (rather than having the store send it). Many European post offices sell "mailing kits" with a box and tape. I wasn't doing this to avoid duties, just to avoid lugging stuff around, so that may be the difference, but if you wouldn't have to declare it hand-carrying it back, you shouldn't have to for mailing it yourself either. Sounds like you got had by the store. Liz Vaughan ...tektronix!tektools!lizv
darryl@ISM780.UUCP (09/04/85)
While in England and Scotland, we slowly shipped back all of the clothing we brought with us. We then proceeded to wear or carry most of the stuff we bought. We did ship some items back (we bought a set of Waterford crystal IN THE AIRPORT, but still much cheaper than here!), but were never assessed any duty. Buying another suitcase was not an option for us -- we were travelling on a rented motorcycle! --Darryl Richman, INTERACTIVE Systems Corp. ...!cca!ima!ism780!darryl The views expressed above are my opinions only.
thomas@utah-gr.UUCP (Spencer W. Thomas) (09/05/85)
In article <255@decwrl.UUCP> kolling@decwrl.UUCP (Karen Kolling) writes: >I've forgotten the shipping >charges (not large enough to make an impression, I assume), but no >duty was collected. This must vary by country of origin, or else US >Snail slipped up. I think that the collection of duty on packages shipped from foreign countries is somewhat random. Last time we went to Europe, we had several things shipped back (sweaters from Norway and glassware from Denmark), and no duty was collected on any of it. The shipping charges were not outrageous (less than the VAT, as I recall, and it's hard to get a VAT refund when you leave the country on a train in the middle of the night), and no duty was collected. (The Danish store (BoligHus) marked our package as "Unsolicited gift, value less than $25" with a big red sticker. This may have had something to do with it, although the little green customs form gave the actual value in kroner (about $150, as I recall).) In any case, it sure beat carrying around 30 pieces of fragile crystal for 3 more weeks! -- =Spencer ({ihnp4,decvax}!utah-cs!thomas, thomas@utah-cs.ARPA) "To feel at home, stay at home. A foreign country is not designed to make [one] comfortable. It's designed to make its own people comfortable." Clifton Fadiman