Could someone please help me out with a question about import tax or charges. I have read on previous threads about people having to pay taxes when buying watches from abroad,I'm living in Australia and thinking of buying a watch from the USA,would this incur a Tax or fee of any kind? Thanks in advance.
Your customs office will tax it, often based on the value stipulated on label. Sometimes they open packages but not that often. Some people will either downplay the value on label ( not legal) but outside of the legal matters this will also mean you can or insure for the value you are posting. So if the package is damaged or lost you're screwed.
Also maybe you will get lucky and avoid tax. Last watch I purchased was declared at full value ( 400 usd) and the Canadian tax man must have been asleep because I didn't have any tax/ duty to pay.
This is Australia mate. I've bought quite a few watches from France/USA/UK/Japan/Poland/Romania and others. Never had to pay anything other than the sale price to the seller.
If you declared your parcel for more than AUD1,000, it will incur custom charges and/or quarantine fees.
As per @JimInOz and @Dre said, if declared value is less than $1000AUD you will not need to pay any customs to Australian authorities.
I've sold just one watch to Australia, and the buyer made sure not to pay anything. In the rare instances where I've bought from overseas, I've tried to do the same. But it's not always very legal, so it's best to make sure that the OP knows what he's doing
If the declared value, plus the cost of shipping and insurance is $1000 aus or greater (based on rate of exchange at the time of assesment) you may have to pay 10% gst on the total value of the transaction (watch, shipping and insurance), plus pay customs clearance fees. If you are really unlucky and the watch is a chronograph (time recording device) and the person assesing opens the package, sees it is a chrono, has read that part of the act and interprets that part of the very poorly worded legislation in the tax departments favour you may be charged 15%. Sometimes you'll get lucky and pay nothing at all