Subject:
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Re: Importing LEGO
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.loc.au
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Date:
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Wed, 7 Jun 2000 07:04:36 GMT
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Viewed:
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443 times
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> Apparently Customs don't charge import duties when the total for
> duties and taxes is less than $50.
The current (pre-GST) situation is that you are always liable for these
duties and taxes on imported items, but they don't usually bother to pursue
it if it would amount to less than $50. Currently, this means imports valued
at less than $180 can avoid duties and taxes (based on 28% duties/taxes). I
think the $50 limit is set to reflect both the effort involved for them and
also to avoid the bad PR of things like birthday gifts from overseas grandma
being levied with sales tax.
I think you will still be liable for these duties and sales taxes post-GST,
but since the introduction of GST will lower the percentage payable on many
imported goods, it will be interesting to see if that $50 threshold is also
maintained. If it is, then yes, you can probably avoid sales tax (I don't
think duties apply to toys) on up to $500 of Lego.
My suspicion is that there will be pressure to lower the cant-be-bothered
threshold. But, it probably won't happen straightaway.
> The examples they gave were:
> Clothes $140
> Shoes $195
> CD's, software, books $499
If you really want to beat the GST, buy things like software and books now
here in Australia while they are sales-tax-exempt! They will be more
expensive after GST.
> [1] I'm assuming here that lego/toys come under the same category as • books,
> cd's, etc.
Should be, as they will all be 10% GST items.
> This
> would allow us to purchase a reasonable amount of lego not currently
> available in Australia, without everyone having to pay a high postage
> amount.
Yes, postage is a big issue. You could easily spend more on postage than you
save on avoiding the GST! My recent imports cost me about 1/3 as much again
for postage. For example, surface mail from the USA using USPS costs USD
15.70 (currently $26 in real money!) for a 2-pound parcel, then rising
steading to the upper limit of 44-pound (costing USD 52.07 or $96). More for
airmail of course.
So even if you can avoid the GST by importing, it probably still won't be
worth doing unless:
* you just can't buy it in Australia anyway
* you are getting a phenomenally good deal on the base price overseas
Incidentally, it is worth noting that the $50-cant-be-bothered rule only
applies to one-off imports. If Customs observe a steady stream of
just-under-the-limit imports coming for you, then they will decide that you
are worth bothering about, and start charging you sales tax.
Kerry
--
===========================================================================
Dr Kerry Raymond, Distinguished Research Fellow kerry@dstc.edu.au
CRC for Enterprise Distributed Systems Technology Ph: +61 7 3365 4310
University of Queensland 4072 Australia Fax: +61 7 3365 4311
===================================================== www.dstc.edu.au/kerry
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