Import taxes question

Hello guys, kind of a newb question here...

I want to import a doll from Thailand to the states via EMS, but I have no idea whatsoever about import taxes if applicable or what is the safe price range to know how much if any to expect once she gets here.

7 minutes ago, puxlavoix said:

Hello guys, kind of a newb question here...

I want to import a doll from Thailand to the states via EMS, but I have no idea whatsoever about import taxes if applicable or what is the safe price range to know how much if any to expect once she gets here.

There are no US import fees on dolls, doll clothing, or accessories.

Yes, as long as you are using EMS, you should not have any import fees on doll stuff. I have been acquiring dolls from overseas since 2006 and I've never once been poked with any.

Some of the private shippers like DHL will charge fees for very expensive packages, though, so make sure it is EMS.

1 hour ago, Gallye said:

Some of the private shippers like DHL will charge fees for very expensive packages, though, so make sure it is EMS.

There isn’t a good reason not to use EMS, but I’ve had DHL ship me $1500+ dolls and I’ve never been charged any fees.

Yeah I've used DHL for dolls, doll clothes and wigs, and anime figures, no customs charges for it coming to the US ever. I haven't had charges from EMS, either. Frankly I would go with EMS specifically if it's significantly cheaper. Sometimes the prices for DHL amd EMS are similar, in which case I go DHL--because Holy snarf, DHL is FAST. 

59 minutes ago, Poofiemus said:

Yeah I've used DHL for dolls, doll clothes and wigs, and anime figures, no customs charges for it coming to the US ever. I haven't had charges from EMS, either. Frankly I would go with EMS specifically if it's significantly cheaper. Sometimes the prices for DHL amd EMS are similar, in which case I go DHL--because Holy snarf, DHL is FAST. 

Agree with both DHL and EMS. Had some Picco Neemo's ship thru DHL, Saber Alter is thru EMS, Saber is arriving tomorrow, while the Neemo's are arriving Tuesday.

Both shipped out from  Amiami the same day, (Sept 1st.!!), go figure. 

No extra fees at all.

Edited September 4, 2021 by battrastard

2 hours ago, Gallye said:

Some of the private shippers like DHL will charge fees for very expensive packages, though, so make sure it is EMS.

Wow that's actually what I believe they do... charge some crazy "brokerage fees" that add up to 40% in some cases... or at least that's what they do in other countries.

 

1 hour ago, BeyondTime said:

There isn’t a good reason not to use EMS

Any significant difference in transit times between the two?

 

57 minutes ago, Poofiemus said:

Yeah I've used DHL for dolls, doll clothes and wigs, and anime figures, no customs charges for it coming to the US ever. I haven't had charges from EMS, either. Frankly I would go with EMS specifically if it's significantly cheaper. Sometimes the prices for DHL amd EMS are similar, in which case I go DHL--because Holy snarf, DHL is FAST. 

Its actually the same from what I'm getting But just to know, how fast are we talking about here? 

4 minutes ago, battrastard said:

Agree with both DHL and EMS. Had some Picco Neemo's ship thru DHL, Saber Alter is thru EMS, Saber is arriving tomorrow, while the Neemo's are arriving Tuesday.

Both shipped out from  Amiami the same day, (Sept 1st.!!), go figure. 

 Wow that is fast!

Will consider DHL then, thank for the input! 

As @baldylox can witness, DHL may actually charge fees on expensive parcels even in the US lol 

2 hours ago, BeyondTime said:

There isn’t a good reason not to use EMS, but I’ve had DHL ship me $1500+ dolls and I’ve never been charged any fees.

I had a $1000 MDD shipped from Mandarake to US via DHL and got hit with import fees. It was $59.00 and DHL refused to release the package until it was paid.

Posted about it on FB just to be sure it wasn't something shady and everyone was floored that it can happen. It seems like sometimes you just get unlucky, but it's rare.

Yeah, that's my bad - I meant to say that you might get dinged with fees through a private shipper, not that you one hundred percent will! (That'll teach me to type quick and run, yeesh.) However, I've definitely never had it happen with EMS.

32 minutes ago, DreamDollDesign said:

It was $59.00 and DHL refused to release the package until it was paid.

If DHL hit you with import fees on behalf of the govt, you can probably recover the money by appealing to the government as long as the import paperwork properly declared the doll. They can’t just invent a tax.

*cry-laughs in German because we have to pay 19% VAT on the whole value of any order from outside EU, and that is INCLUDING SHIPPING FEES* (and customs fees on top of that for everything over a certain amount) 

Edited September 4, 2021 by samseramsamsam

43 minutes ago, samseramsamsam said:

19% VAT

I raise your 19%, with 4.7% customs fees on dolls resembling humans and + 24% VAT

26 minutes ago, finnleo said:

I raise your 19%, with 4.7% customs fees on dolls resembling humans and + 24% VAT

Ugh.. that's heavy. Not that our 22% VAT is pleasant, I mean, the other day I had to pay the postman less than 2 euros for a small package from China.

I should keep a money jar near my entrance door.

8 hours ago, puxlavoix said:

Its actually the same from what I'm getting But just to know, how fast are we talking about here? 

I ordered Marisa on Thursday, Mandarake shipped her Friday, and she arrived on Monday! DHL Express does not mess around.

And I agree, getting charged customs on a doll in the US sounds like an error. There is no customs on hobby items for consumers in the US. The only semi-legit reason I can think is if the customs form mislabeled the package as something else like textiles. (Fun fact, US customs gets most of their money from commercial scale textile imports.)

9 hours ago, puxlavoix said:

Any significant difference in transit times between the two?

Currently, EMS is a little bit hit-or-miss right now, at least from Japan since it's opened back up.  I had an EMS package sit and wait an entire week to get a flight out.  Took two weeks total to reach me.  DHL meanwhile will get packages to me from Japan in three days 99% of the time.

Also, you can also get hit with Brokerage Fees from services like UPS and Fedex.  It usually depends on if they decide to search your package or not.  You'll get charged a fee for them looking through the package, and especially if they confiscate something from your package for a stupid reason.  I had UPS confiscate some POTATO CHIPS from a Japan snacks package because it was chicken FLAVOURED.  Not real chicken, which is illegal to import into the US— no.  Flavoured.

No, no.  I'm not bitter about the fact that they took my fried chicken potato chips and charged me $26 for the inconvenience.  Not at all...

9 hours ago, samseramsamsam said:

*cry-laughs in German because we have to pay 19% VAT on the whole value of any order from outside EU, and that is INCLUDING SHIPPING FEES* (and customs fees on top of that for everything over a certain amount) 

We really hate taxes over here, and enough so that the government has to borrow money to operate which is problematic. 

On 9/4/2021 at 3:08 AM, Bellatrix said:

As @baldylox can witness, DHL may actually charge fees on expensive parcels even in the US lol 

Ohhh yes I can.  Those dirty little bast@rds in customs will jump on you and smack you with fees for no reason at all.  Well, almost no reason.....

 

Basically what happened is that I bought a large collection of stuff shipping from Italy and using DHL.  DHL themselves had no real dog in this fight but I found out that ANY package coming from overseas that is valued at $2500 USD is automatically pulled and checked to see what's inside.  My seller said it was valued at 2500 Euros so that's what got my package flagged.  

They pulled it and emailed me several times asking things like what were the items inside, what were they made of, what were the wigs made of along with ALL the clothes. They also wanted an itemized list of all items included and each individual price.  It was extremely annoying and my poor seller had to jump thru hoops for me in order to make customs happy.  After almost a week of this BS they finally accepted our updated info and let the package go thru customs.  Hopefully it will get to me early this coming week.

So make sure that you know what to expect if you are spending 2500 or more on things.  I wanted the insurance to cover me if anything went wrong so I had to have the amount right.  And that's what triggered them to pull my package.  Hopefully no one else has this happen to them, it was quite annoying and stressful.  😛 

 

 

Billy

I noticed that a lot of the items on the Japanese Dollfie Dream website now say "tax included".

Can any fellow EU person here tell me if that means we in the EU can finally order from this website without having to pay for taxes? Because that would be awesome.

On 9/4/2021 at 3:49 AM, DreamDollDesign said:

I had a $1000 MDD shipped from Mandarake to US via DHL and got hit with import fees. It was $59.00 and DHL refused to release the package until it was paid.

File for a foreign tax credit on your 2021 return.

33 minutes ago, Roxanne said:

I noticed that a lot of the items on the Japanese Dollfie Dream website now say "tax included".

Can any fellow EU person here tell me if that means we in the EU can finally order from this website without having to pay for taxes? Because that would be awesome.

In Japan, sales tax on non-food items is currently 10%. Unlike many (all?) EU countries however, when stating prices for an item, Japanese shops are not required by law to include this tax value in the price tag. The result is an ugly hodge-podge of shops that DO include the tax and ones that DON'T. (Not including it is stupid though, as basically any normal person has to pay it at the register anyway.) - Usually customers have to look for small identifiers like 税込 (including tax) or 税別 (before tax) on the price tag as well.

Luckily, the trend goes towards including tax in the price tags and Volks somewhat recently jumped onto it as well.

As the international site (to my knowledge) is just a machine translation of the Japanese one, this identifier likely carried over. But I'm wondering - in the end International customers shouldn't actually get billed the 10% tax, ore are they?

Nonetheless - this refers only to Japanese sales tax, so you still have to pay for any import duties or taxes if you order a package from them.

2 hours ago, Tierparkzone said:

But I'm wondering - in the end International customers shouldn't actually get billed the 10% tax, ore are they?

Correct. You will not need to pay the 10% tax as an outside-of-Japan-customer.