Buying bus abroad and importing
 

Hi everyone,

I want to buy a bus for a charity I run to offer free rides to school for kids. Looking at the prices of buses, for example a Toyota Hiace here, they are very expensive, has anyone every imported a vehicle, can I get any concessions as it is for a charity? Want to keep the costs as low as possible, happy to do all the legwork and paperwork myself but not sure where to start. Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks

Sarah

Re: Buying bus abroad and importing
 

As you havent saidwhere you are its not possible to answer it more clearly. Find the local importer in st lucia, ask what they would charge locally. Contact customs and ask them how they calculate duty, plus fees plus vat plus environmental levy plus plus plus or you may find it on a govt website, careful, charges are made on their assessed cost, not your receipt, plus freight and insurance costs are taxed too, you havent said where you are but if new you export from your country tax free but this may be misleading as it depends where you are vs where its made to calc these. Not many dealers do tax free export in some countries.

In gda, its usually cheaper to buy locally if new, usually cheaper to import if quite old but duties etc etc will be a bill of circa 160% at the port so if it cost 20000 in your country you will pay 20000 + 33000 ish... plus a few k for shipping.

Here there are concessions for anyone who can argue them locally to the govt, but could be different for st lucia but, i would strongly suggest the charity locally talk to their govt contacts and customs. Foreigners wouldnt get as good a hearing as a local charity high up i suspect...

Re: Buying bus abroad and importing
 

Free rides to school - arent kids given cheap bus travel anyway? Again, careful - i could see insurance issues potentially. Also, running costs will be similarly high as the vehicle itself.

It might be interesting to compare your costs against renting a bus as a taxi for x hours a day. Might be comparable?

Re: Marriage to a St Lucian citizen
 

K.rowlings...I have moved your post to a new thread here...

http://britishexpats.com/forum/saint.../#post12340858

Re: Buying bus abroad and importing
 

Thanks!