import duties normal China => US?

[djacobow]

I live in the US. I have bought a fair amount of stuff from China via E-bay, free shipping. Never had to pay any extra duties or fees. However, the other day I got a Maynuo electronic load from E-bay, shipped from China. It was $498, free shipping, but in order to receive the item I had to pay the UPS guy $20.45 in "brokerage fees."

Is this normal? If so, what determines what the fees are and if you'll have to pay them?

PS -- so far the electronic load works fine. :-)

[Falcon69]

Yes.

If Customs determines that the value is greater than $250.00, whether you paid that much for it or not, You can and will be subject to duties and broker fees if applicable.  In addition, you could be forced to pay local tax as well on it.

I just went through the same thing.

[djacobow]

Thanks. It sounds like I've been slipping under the radar for awhile. At $498+20.45 it's still a fine unit.

[Mechatrommer]

Tax is your government [custom] policy issue. Zero relation with sellers and anybody around the world.if you have issue,talk to your government or find a way around them. I usually asked for express courier,now not anymore,only registered mail ok. our new custom policy seems targeting express courier customers for tax collection party making checking and verification the item arrive too late,plus you double pay, expensive courier service and the tax. Shit happened.

[Mechatrommer]

and when the china seller simply put 'as gift' or some nonsense in item declaration,they the custom will phone you asking payment receipt you made online,triple the trouble hassleness

[Bryan]

I live in the US. I have bought a fair amount of stuff from China via E-bay, free shipping. Never had to pay any extra duties or fees. However, the other day I got a Maynuo electronic load from E-bay, shipped from China. It was $498, free shipping, but in order to receive the item I had to pay the UPS guy $20.45 in "brokerage fees."

Is this normal? If so, what determines what the fees are and if you'll have to pay them?

PS -- so far the electronic load works fine. :-)

Consider yourself lucky, in Canada we pay duty and taxes on anything imported by mail over $20.00. oh and UPS will charge $63.00 brokerage fees on top of that for a import value of $500.00. 

[Mr Simpleton]

In this part of the world... Using postal services it happens every now and then for a shipment to slip under the tax radar even if the correct value is declared!

If it is shipped suing FedEx/UPS.. they will enforce the tax with a vengeance! I have 100 % cases of paying custom and VAT when using these...

[nctnico]

If you buy something from a different country you have to include the import duties into your decision to buy. Not doing so is quite foolish.

[cosmicray]

Import duty applied all the time, but most Chinese brokers will not declare the correct value of the goods.

Therefore, for most the time, US customs won't charge you tax. However, if the seller honestly declared the value, then you have to pay tax.

It's slightly more complicated than that. The duty is determined by the Harmonized Tariff Code (HTC) of the item being shipped, and the country of destination's treatment of that particular HTC from the country of origin. There also may be a minimum amount that is duty free (regardless of the HTC).

The one order I had from eBay/HK, the seller marked it is Gift (even tho it was not), which gets treated differently as well. Some buyers feel the need to lean on sellers to get the Gift designation, even tho that puts the seller on shaky legal ground with their own customs department.

Looking at the most recent invoice from DigiKey, they put "HTSUS" on each item, which I suspect is what I call the HTC.

[Fungus]

If it is shipped suing FedEx/UPS.. they will enforce the tax with a vengeance!

Yep - because they get to charge you an "administrative fee" for doing so.

ie. It's in their interest to make sure every single packet goes through the full customs process.