Kawasaki Sportsbike Riders Club - Australia - Online Forum

Hi Folks, for those of you who regularly order parts from the US or UK, is there an amount which attracts customs attention and potentially GST or duty ?

Do you keep your orders below a certain value, or is this no longer necessary?

Cheers
Matt

Keep it below 1000, and triple check that they are splitting it if you request it.

Yep like Russ said. Once you go over $1000 (including freight) you get arse raped. Chris's engine was $1400 inc freight and the customs charges/gst etc were $750.

Get your freight costs itemized then you can spend $1k on parts alone.

zxsixr03 wrote:Get your freight costs itemized then you can spend $1k on parts alone.

Thats what we did. I argued it with the forwarder and the customs monkeys but they said it's $1000 including freight. In our case the engine was $980 AUD plus a seperate freight invoice for $450.

My exhaust cost AU$1100 shipped via US Mail International but the seller put the value as around AU$300 on the customs declaration so no problem.

If you can get the seller to under-value the stuff coming in, that is one way of avoiding the bullshit customs duty. Limit is $1k incl. freight - which is total crap itself, because stuff *has* to be freighted, and this cost is not an inherent value of the item being freighted !! which is the whole point of customs *duty* in the first fucking place !!!

I got smashed with the conversion kit for the Jag, even though old mate split the shipment into 2 parts, so each was valued under $1k - on the second invoice, he put the *total* of the order, which meant that a $700 shipment was going to cost me almost $500 in duty !!!!! I ended up getting a customs broker at Botany to sort it out, and he got the total down to about half that.........NFI how, but he did.

So be careful with anything up around the $1k mark.

If Gerry Harvey had his way, we would be paying customs duty on *everything* purchased from overseas, valued at $1 or more !!!! what a fucknuckle, he sells computers to everyone, and then whinges that people use those same computers to buy shit off ebay !!! you fucking moron !!!!!

Thanks for the info folks, parts ordered in two batches in the end, each less thank 1K.

I hear ya about hardleys Gos, he is now on my list, I know he doesn't care if he gets my money or not but makes me feel better to shop elsewhere!

Cheers
Matt

Glen wrote:

zxsixr03 wrote:Get your freight costs itemized then you can spend $1k on parts alone.

Thats what we did. I argued it with the forwarder and the customs monkeys but they said it's $1000 including freight. In our case the engine was $980 AUD plus a seperate freight invoice for $450.

I must have been lucky my front rotors were just on $990AUD shipping was $80 or something i got the held in customs letter rang them emailed them the invoice for the parts alone, a few days later they wee on my door...

zxsixr03 wrote: ...emailed them the invoice for the parts alone, a few days later they wee on my door...

Bastards!

Just got a note about a promotion in the US, 2011 zx6r USD9999 witht he current exchange rate........

wonder what shipping would be?