Tariffs

[needsmorecowbel]

Seeing as the dollar is so strong i was thinking of getting some of Stew Mac's Quilted Maple Drop Tops...Has anyone on the forums ever had customs taxes put on top of DHL express shipping prices?

[Allen]

The DHL orders I've been getting from StewMac have been less than USPS in all cases. Arrive in 4 - 5 days at the most. And no duties or taxes. Just as it should be. Except if you go over the $1,000 AUD threshold of course.

I have never ordered wood from them though, so don't know if that will have to go through the quarantine inspection service and incur a fee from them. It would be worth asking your local DHL depot about that.

[bobthebuilder]

My last order of wood was sent through DHL and is the first time I have been charged a Quarantine Processing fee (charged by DHL) the wood was seasoned ,clean maple sets so no reason for processing by anybody, but still I was charged $47.30 as I said by DHL. All my wood usualy comes by USPS and even though it is opened and inspected by Aquis there is only their calling card included but no fee go figure. Cheers Bob

[kiwigeo]

The subject of shipping from the US and charges and fees has been covered extensively in a number of previous threads....I believe it was being discussed as recently as last week.

The guidelines I follow:

1. ship with US postal service where possible.
2. keep total value of goods plus freight below $Aus1000. Make sure shipper clearly states value of goods and contents on paperwork and make sure the value isn't grossly undervalued.
3. DHL are preferred as a courier company over UPS.

Cheers Martin

[Allen]

I've heard that all Quarantine listed items shipped through a courier will be inspected and I suppose this will slow down their workflow. I can understand a fee in this instance, just for the interruption to their (DHL's) otherwise superb service. Wouldn't make me like paying it one bit though.

I suppose that you have to weight out the difference in cost to shipping with DHL and USPS for each particular order. Paying a flat fee of $40 some odd might be a fair trade off to speedy delivery and general less shipping cost to compared to USPS. At least as far as StewMac orders go. I haven't had anything shipped via DHL from any other vendor. They might be getting a break because of volume.

[Kim]

Paying a flat fee of $40 some odd might be a fair trade off to speedy delivery and general less shipping cost to compared to USPS. At least as far as StewMac orders go. I haven't had anything shipped via DHL from any other vendor. They might be getting a break because of volume.

Strange, I have very recently placed two orders only 2 weeks apart with Stewmac, both quite small in size but not so in value. Each time in the checkout shipping via USPS proved to be around 50% of the DHL quote but will take a couple more days to arrive...I can handle that.

On another note I have never had to pay for a quarantine inspection fee, ever, when using USPS. This is because the inspection service is provided by the federal government body known as AQIS whom are the only body authorized to undertake the inspection of imported goods entering our country. The reason AQIS are the only people authorised to carry out these inspections is because their services are in fact an important part of this countries national security and border protection efforts. So just as the services required to protect our boarders from 'military' attack that are provided by the Australian Defense Forces are paid for by our taxes, for the sake of our requirements so to are quarantine inspections.

With this in mind I suspect that when you use USPS, a company with whom Australia Post, a tax paying Australian corporation, have a standing agreement to utilize each others infrastructure in the exchange 'domestic' delivery services at no charge, the cost of these inspection are in fact being looked upon by the federal government as if they were provided to a tax paying Australian citizen, so therefore the cost are waived.

DHL on the other hand is not a tax paying Australian citizen. Therefore they should be required to pay for this service and they do. The question of whether they should then be passing this charge on to their tax paying Australian customers is an interesting one. To my mind these inspection fees are a legitimate cost that is associated with them running 'their' business operations as an alien in this nation and their profit all goes off shore. It is not any Australians fault that they do not pay taxes in this country and are therefore not entitle to the same services free of charge. As I see, these foreign owned and operated companies should take their fucking hands out of our pockets and go have a chat to their own nations tax department about deducting what is 'their' business expenditure from 'their' taxable income.

Cheers

Kim