Tricks to avoid custom taxes when receiving international shipment :)

[Abysmal Vapor]

I have some tricks i wanna share with you.. they work here ...
1. I always contact the seller before purchase and ask him two things :
A) IF he can send me the package as gift .No billings.
B)Can u list the price to be 10 $ ?
2. If option A is impossible.But point B is possible.And you fear customs may decide to hold it,.To be 100% sure I ask the seller to divide the transaction in two invoices
One for the (Whole Price minus 10 $) , the other one for just $10. When i go to customs they require to see (they dont archive it) photo copy of the transaction to see if the transaction responds to the stated amount... of the purchase (which is stated to be 10$ and i show them the 10$ transaction ..
If they dont wanna divide the invoice i do some cheap ass photoshoping in order to correct the price(i just cut (i mean in adobe photo shop )numbers from somewhere and lay them over the true price and print on black and white printer..

 

[Purple-Days]

Has any legit company ever gone along with your suggestions? Just curious. As it seems you have needed the alternate path of making up your own invoice in Photoshop. How often, if at all, are companies willing to lie on the customs forms (declared value)? We have been asked to lie a number of times, I wonder who would?

 

[Abysmal Vapor]

I bet u are honest and well earning dude so u never lied in your life but ...Some lie even if i dont ask them to do it ...
I have bought not only vapes dude ... Everyone does it ... If not everyone , half of them.If they don't do that i will have to pay 25 % of the price + transport money to go to the capital.. and some money to the grey economy so they can proceed faster...
Which company wanna sell a produkt knowing that is it going to be unpacked an touched by some not very gentle guys... a they make full mess out of it...
I gotta think bout my budget .. It is not easy to purchase expensive electronics or other stuff with $240 salary... (thats what gets the half of the working people in my country)
So if a volcano cost $580 i will have to work.. two months.. to buy one and one extra to pay taxes... Of course i will buy only from sellers who can hide that.... And there is no danger for the seller and non for me.. non for the package.. This is my country... this is how it goes round here... We suffered 30 years of communism and its not easy to learn do to things normally.. here... Everything is bound in personal relationship.. You can get out of prison even with murder charges if you have the right friends..

 

[Dudeson 1882]

I wish it was possible to avoid the customs charge. It's not so much the charge that annoys me as it should be factored into any overseas purchase but the fact it takes them sooooooo long to do it. It takes weeks.

I'm not sure if anything has changed legally lately but it used to be a lot easier to get US companies to write that the package is a gift. The thing is anything I buy is a gift - either for someone else or for me . I don't bother to ask anymore as it seems to be a question that puts the retailer in a difficult position where they really have to say no.

The thing about putting an incorrect value on the package is that if the package is insured it will be for that amount & not the real amount.

Purple Days if I was genuinely buying something as a gift going to a different named person/ address could the package then be labeled a gift?

Edit: MF have labeled my replacement LB as a gift without me asking but not the paid for one I ordered.

 

[WatTyler]

It's the extra handling charges that really irk me. Often they come out more than the actual taxes! It's just extortion, and must be a real money maker for the Royal Mail here. 8 a time, or 13 I think for bigger parcels, plus 20% import VAT on top. Fuck them. It's just plain wrong- I should be able to pay the taxman direct online in this day and age.

Now I can totally understand why US businesses don't want to falsify the declaration- it's fraud.

I've never used one, but what about one of the mail services that give you a US address and then forward on? Such as http://www.shipito.com/
I think you fill out the customs declaration yourself

Has anyone ever tried this kind of thing?

 

[manchild]

First of all I should state that I've never received any customs taxes or extra handling fees on any item I've had sent to Australia.

But I would say the majority of items that i get delivered internationally, wether they are vapor related or not, only have a small amount in the value section of the postage invoice. Lots of the time it's listed as $10 or $20 when the item is far more expensive and often the item description is misleading. I've always thought it was to avoid large customs charges but wondered what would happen in the event of a lost parcel. Would I bear the costs? It seems to be a pretty common practice and I've certainly never requested it.

edited to remove a comment that might have come across wrong

 

[Abysmal Vapor]

Things i noticed sellers do on ebay is to add a product for bidding or selling either and with price 0.1 and Shipping and handling +20-100 $ above what it costs to ship... That is trickery i'd say

 

[He-Man]

That's because Ebay takes some percentage of item price, but not from Shipping fee.

In Croatia I have to pay 23% - Country tax, 13% Customs tax and if value of item is over 900$
you need to pay additional 90$ for some other Customs expenses, and all of that is calculated
on Item price + Shipping price.
So you can end up paying "taxes" in over 50% of item price. Frickin thieves
Average monthly salary is 600$

 

[Abysmal Vapor]

That's because Ebay takes some percentage of item price, but not from Shipping fee.

In Croatia I have to pay 23% - Country tax, 13% Customs tax and if value of item is over 900$
you need to pay additional 90$ for some other Customs expenses, and all of that is calculated
on Item price + Shipping price.
So you can end up paying "taxes" in over 50% of item price. Frickin thieves
Average monthly salary is 600$

Yep ain't easy makin it with those low salaries on the Balkans but... I've been to UK, USA, and HK and i almost died of polution there .... They have money but it does not worth the cancer in the air..
To eat healty food costs a fortune there... I have a cousin who is a vegan a spends every day 50-100$ for vegetables and super foods... I can buy that here for 5-10 $ and homegrown is easy to find...
i ' am not trading i-phone + ipad for cancer

 

[FLskwat]

i ' am not trading i-phone + ipad for cancer

Instead, you should get the new anti-cancer new awesome application man! Only 3,99$...
sorry I had to do it; I'm out! --->[]