blossom

Just wondering, but did you all declare goods that were less than 12 months old and pay the respective Aus duties on them?

And how many of you had your containers inspected by customs when your goods arrived?

Perhaps I'm being overly concerned, but it really hurts to have bought goods and used them, after paying customary VAT here in UK, to then have to fork out to pay Aus duties on arrival. Smacks as not being fair!

Wol

Life ain't meant to be fair!

Our container was of course inspected: no duty and no AQIS charges.

Entering Oz for the first time we had several new items, including jewelery, bought en route. All adding up to more than the allowance, by a fair amount. Declared them, had a chat with the nice customs man at the XRay and were waved through. Why risk blotting your copybook on day one?

Customs are human - play silly buggers with them and they'll be only too happy to brighten up their day in return!

pootle26

as we have just had xmas - the kids have had lots of toys etc - all under 12mths old - do we declare them ??? i was a bit confused as these were gifts.

many thanks

pootle

bondipom

Of course everything was over 12 months old

PommieLeague

Anyone had to pay duty on any parcels or items sent from overseas?

paul&kath

I wouldn't get too worried about it all to be honest. We shipped over loads of stuff (self packed) and when we came to fill out the forms we didn't enter anything as being less than 12 months old. They are not really bothered about kids toys and the like anyway.

Possibly the difficult items are electronics (obviously they are higher value) so those you should really take with you in hand luggage if you can manage them. Of course, it's up to you then whether you declare those...

matt-and-jenny

Glad someone brought his up. I've just got myself a computer worth about £480. We're shipping stuff to Aus. in a couple of weeks. It's a beautiful little Mac mini and I'm going to have to put it down as less than 12 months old because they weren't on the market till last week. Does anyone know how much I'm likely to be charged in duty?

kirsty&al

We declared everything less than 12 months old. The most expensive thing we had was a bread maker (approx £100). The other stuff (declared) was mostly small stuff (cycle helmets) or Christmas presents. We indicated everything that was an Xmas present. The total declared was about £350. We didn't get charged anything. I suspect they probably have a limit at which they become interested.

I know it is a dilemma.

Good Luck.
Alistair

KatieStar

Does it tell you all this info on the blurb that comes with the boxes. I hope so or else I might not declare something I should as I had absolutely no idea about declaring new products until I read this post. We are self packing our stuff to send out to Oz.

From Katie

Larissa

Hi guys
We declared everything we could; in the end you have to guesstimate and it's hard to recall what you've spent over that time. We weren't charged for the container, a suitcase sent by DHL or our new goods in our suitcases. I think they're really looking for people trying to slip stuff through for trading etc. and expect you to have a fair amount of new stuff anyway. Honesty's the best policy and all that! BTW I think they'd be suspicious if you didn't declare a bit.
ATB
Larissa

mutant

Our stuff arrived today and apart from $170 for some bullshit or other there were no charges relating to the brand new (Ahem) computers and white goods.

Pollyana

AQIS Inspection fee I guess.
My computer was 'about' 12 months old, so I didn;t declare it, but I was told that if it had been a new model, that hadn't been out long, it might be spotted and GST charged.