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MG MGB Technical - Posting stuff to Australia?

Folks, a respondent on a recent thread (BGT door trim) has kindly offered to post a piece of trim from the UK to Australia. I'm used to seeing new items from my usual UK suppliers, with a customs declaration saying something like "Classic vehicle parts" and a $/GBpound value.
If I'm right, this is an accepted Declaration to apply the correct Customs Duty for new parts.
But what about a second-hand part with no commercial value? - is there a duty to pay, or is there a wording we should use to ensure that a duty is not incorrectly applied? Put another way, I'm happy to pay an applicable tax, but don't intend to pay a penny more!

Your advice/experience gratefully received. Regards, John.
J P Hall

Perhaps the surest way is to phone Customs?

Regards
Roger
R Taylor

Some info here on the Royal Mail website

https://business.help.royalmail.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/875/~/help-with-customs
Dave O'Neill 2

Isn't the import tax calculated as a percentage of the amount paid for the part. Surely if you're paying nothing the tax can only be zero!
Allan Reeling

John
I get a fair bit of stuff from outside Australia--
Are you asking about
UK - VAT
Or Australian import duty

On VAT-- If the item is being exported out of UK the VAT doesn't apply and the item should be priced minus vat if they are new -- I'm not sure how vat applies to used items
If the item is from the USA there isn't a vat type charge

With Australian import duty-
There is no charge for packages with a value under
$1000--excluding postage for normal freight / post
However this reduces to $500 for express freight

From experience, sometimes I have found if you use FEDEX they automatically say that is express post just because of the name of it
I use Fedex or US Postal or Royal Mail as first choices
I would guess that your door trim would be less than $500 so not a problem

I tend to stay away from the freight companies, even though they might be a bit cheaper, some have an arangement with customs to do their own inspections and can attract an unexpected customs inspection bill

"Make sure to get them to do a customs declaration" though with the item description and value
If the item is a freeby, I'd still put some sort of value on it just to make it come through without questions- Remember you can go up to $500 / $1000 without having to pay duty so there is no need to go down the sample or gift road
If you do this with Fedex or US Postal or RoyalMail it will simply get scanned when it arrives in Australia, but without the declaration it will be opened and you run the risk of it getting damaged or not repacked very well
Clear plastic packaging is a good idea to get through customs without the need to unpack it

If your item is under 1 meter long so that it fits in the pallet size containers Fedex and US will take them ok but if it is longer you might have to go to a dreaded freight company

willy
William Revit

Willy - now THAT is what I call helpful information. I agree that Royal Mail from the UK seems to be reasonably priced; this is a secondhand item with no "commercial" value although of course it has value to me as a restorer. So your suggestion that we put a nominal value on it, makes sense.

Iwan, if you're there, we'll confirm by email.

Thanks all for your help. Regards, John.
J P Hall

John
If you have - Vintage car part - on your declaration it will sail through as vintage parts are duty free regardless of value -but not new replacement parts, only stuff over 30 years old
On another piece to the customs maze, if you have multiple items coming in and they are at customs at the same time, they add their values together to calculate your duty
This can be a bit of a surprise if you know each package is under the limit but together they can attract quite a surprise bill

willy
William Revit

This thread was discussed between 01/08/2016 and 02/08/2016

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