When it comes to importing anything it definitely pays to buy it off someone that is willing to take care of ALL the formalities of clearing customs over here unless you have a reliable customs broker or you know a lot about the whole system. There are a lot of rules and a lot of traps for the inexperienced. I used to be in international trade and I can tell you that Australia protects it's economy like no other country.
And if they ping you for the duty >>> which would probably be 15%, but can be less depending on the item, they will also ping another 10% for GST.
And.... ...the GST side of things is paid on the total including shipping. So if something cost $500USD + $200USD freight you'd pay. 15% on $500USD as duty = $75USD and 10% on $700USD = $70USD for a total of $845USD which they'd of course convert to AUD at the rate of purchase date. All boils down to luck though really, I had $4,000 worth of turbos let in one day with no duty, and on other occasion had something worth a hundred bucks pinged full rate. and one last thing if it's coming from the USA use USPS and your chances of paying no duty are much better. same with Jap Post.
The way around this is to pay the freight directly to the shipper over there. Then the shipment comes "Freight prepaid" therefore not attracting GST on the freight component.
Nope. Makes no difference if it's prepaid or not. And for some reason they're a lil inconsistant with this charge... they'll mostly not charge you 10% GST on the freight.
Yeah its mostly luck.... I think I paid about $50 in total for duties on a parcel of 8.5k worth of turbos manifolds and dumps. Other times they call you up for a reciept and other times you pay nothing. When I got my pistons sent over the sender accidently ticked "costs to sender" on the delivery notice so they ended up with all my import charges and GST on $900 of pistons which was nice for me
