Amazon presumptive import taxes

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Forums › Finance and wealth management › Amazon presumptive import taxes

Disrespective

1925 posts

Uber Geek

#199094 4-Aug-2016 10:19

I'm looking to buy a couple of things from Amazon and have found a strange occurence.

The items (including shipping) from Amazon.co.uk total to GBP$203 (NZD$377), or on Amazon.com they're USD$250 (NZD$376). However Amazon.com adds a NZD$115 import duty tax payment...

Am I likely to be stung for the tax when my UK sourced items arrive, or would I be refunded from the US site?

pulsta

164 posts

Master Geek

#1604130 4-Aug-2016 10:35

That does sound a bit off.

Maybe check with www.whatsmyduty.org.nz

asmcar

331 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1604138 4-Aug-2016 10:46

Beware - if duty is not claimed on the US order when Amazon takes a deposit, it takes 60 days for the deposit to be refunded. I'm currently waiting for $100 to be returned to me, really puts me off it.

Disrespective

1925 posts

Uber Geek

#1604146 4-Aug-2016 11:06

pulsta:

That does sound a bit off.

Maybe check with www.whatsmyduty.org.nz

The USD price is OK, and so is the UK price, however the UK price does show a warning stating that it's very near the limit of $60 duty.

wellygary

8312 posts

Uber Geek

#1604149 4-Aug-2016 11:11

$400 NZD is the level that GST ( and other fees ) will kick if its non-duty item

The exchange rate they use is at the time of arrival and it is NOT the bank rate

http://www.customs.govt.nz/news/utilities/pages/rates-of-exchange.aspx

So you are close to the level, and if the Ex rates move by the time you item arrives you could get stung.

frankv

5680 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#1604151 4-Aug-2016 11:16

Disrespective:

I'm looking to buy a couple of things from Amazon and have found a strange occurence.

The items (including shipping) from Amazon.co.uk total to GBP$203 (NZD$377), or on Amazon.com they're USD$250 (NZD$376). However Amazon.com adds a NZD$115 import duty tax payment...

Am I likely to be stung for the tax when my UK sourced items arrive, or would I be refunded from the US site?

Odd... I thought that under NZ$400 there was no GST to pay. And duty is minimal on most stuff; 10% on a few things (clothing, shoes, motor vehicle parts), 5% on others, but mostly 0%. http://www.customs.govt.nz/news/resources/tariff/theworkingtariffdocument/Pages/default.aspx has the full list. So on $376 at most there would be $94 to pay.

Are you importing these things for a business?

Disrespective

1925 posts

Uber Geek

#1604161 4-Aug-2016 11:35

Nah, it's computer hardware, and I always thought it was as soon as I needed to pay more than $60 of GST ($400 of goods) then they'd sting me for it. Not some arbitrary number, but I guess there's other levies and charges there that they need to take on my one-off single item purchase that would be there if I imported 10 of them.

*shrug*

I was just surprised that the AmazonUK system wasn't able to see that the GBP price was close to the threshold, like the US site did, and preempt the fees.

Regardless, I put the order through with AmazonUK so we'll see how it goes.