Tariffs, Customs, Duty Etc.

[cteno4]

Beware as i just got a spat of spam emails pretending to be usps and DHL with links to pay some small duty fees! Perfect time for scammers to come in with chaos and no info on how things are going to work with us customs…

 

I put in two orders from japan [damn sankatsu is like eating popcorn, one small bit at a time but you cant stop!] thru japan post so we shall see how much they get delayed in us customs coming in even with de minimis exemption still in effect for japan. Also curious to see how the paperwork now will look and if they will be requiring showing country of origin for all goods

 

jeff

[brill27mcb]

Jeff, de minimis is still in place for shipments from Japan to the U.S.? Until when? (I can't keep up...)  🤪

 

Rich K.

[cteno4]

Yes the de minimis exemption is only killed for shipments from china and Hong Kong. Exemption is still in place for everywhere else right now. Sounds like eventually they will kill it everywhere. China de minimis is like 90% of de minimis exempt packages and the main target of the tariffs. 

 

Who knows when the de minimis exemption will go away everywhere. Info on all this is so scarce and confusing.

 

I am just hoping that my japanese de minimis dont get flagged as needing a full customs process that could entail fees even if no duty. Also the worry anything produced in china but sold thru Japanese shop [ie tomytec stuff] getting snagged as requiring duty. All depends on how these new systems are going to work and the what the powers to be are targeting with them.

 

jeff

[Kingmeow]

To add, my recent order of last week from Plaza to the US arrived fine with no delays or any other fees.  The order was about $200.  I was testing de minimis for stuff coming from Japan.  At least that's what I told my wife.  🤣

 

The funny thing is that I got two Tomix containers.  One Made in Japan and the other Made in China.  To what Jeff said about China goods through Japan... 🙄🤪  The rest of my order is Made in Japan.

 

EDIT: Jeff's post below triggered some additional info.  My order from Plaza was via DHL Global Express.

Edited 5 hours ago by Kingmeow

[cteno4]

Good to hear. A fedex is on the way to me from Sakatsu. Don’t know if any of the items are made in china. Doesnt appear they are asking country of origin yet for items and thus would know or if they are applying that or not. Again just no good info on all of this from the government, shippers, customs, or usps. 

 

Good news is the de minimis looks to be the same as it used to be from japan. It will be interesting to see how things come thru japan post to usps on the other order and if slowed up at all. 

 

Jeff

[Tony Galiani]

To follow up on what @Kingmeow noted, my recent package from Plaza Japan did not have extra charges either.  I was concerned as the MicroAce box clearly states Made In China.

One caution with Fed Ex - I recently had some music items shipped from Japan and while the product was delivered without an issue, I did get a follow up letter from Fed Ex with duty charges.  And since these companies like to pile on, about a third of the bill was for their fees.

Tony

[cteno4]

So was this a japanese made product or a chinese made product? Or was it past de minimis? 

 

Yes my fear is this all will lead to fee city for the shippers to gorge on as its usually per shipment charge not a percentage like duty.

 

jeff

[Tony Galiani]

My music item order ran just over $900 and was only a Japanese product.  Part of the problem was that the sender included the shipping cost which inflated the price.  If/when I do something like that again, I would make sure that the shipping is charged separately.

Tony

[cteno4]

Ahh bummer! Yes thats the issue now on getting customs forms filled out correctly by vendors. For US customs these have also changed. They also want the HTS number. One of your club member just had an order go over a little bit on $800 and owed a couple of bucks in duty but then ups did $40 or so in fees as the over $800 required full customs process and thus the big fees.

 

Hopefully vendors will figure out how to make this as smooth as possible in the new worlds order for us customs.

 

jeff

[Kingmeow]

22 hours ago, Tony Galiani said:

One caution with Fed Ex - I recently had some music items shipped from Japan and while the product was delivered without an issue, I did get a follow up letter from Fed Ex with duty charges.  And since these companies like to pile on, about a third of the bill was for their fees.

Tony

 

@Tony Galiani was any of the listed charges for "Brokerage Fee"?  USP and FedEx are known to charge brokerage fee for things coming from Canada into the US and people have learned to use Canada Post -> USPS.  I'm stating this wondering if their Modus Operandi are the same for other, distant, countries like Japan.

 

One of the reasons why I stuck with DHL when I order from Plaza (and it exceeds the economy of Japan Post) even though the two of them are a buck or two cheaper.

[Tony Galiani]

@Kingmeow - There were three charges on the bill but I cannot remember the details.  One charge was the Customs Duty.  Don't remember the others specifically - some sort of service fees.  I had actually purchased the items using Mira's eBay account so the bill went to her - and she paid it as she knew I would be cranky about it!

Tony

[cteno4]

Yeah even with de minimis exemption in the past ups especially has been the one to sometimes pop on the full customs processing fee coming into the us, especially from canada. I use to order some equipment from canada for work projects and just bought it in my own name [im a freelancer] and like a couple of hundred bucks usually and every time it came across the boarder ups they added the fee. Was totally silly with NAFTA and de minimis exemption. None of the other carriers triggered this. Usually a customs review should only happen if over the de minimis limit or something funky in paperwork or contents and UPS would need to be the agent [none of my packages were like this and invoice or package op ended by customs]. I would call UPS to investigate and get the run around every time but from what they were saying it was sounding like they just did it to most all the packages. When I would ask for customs paperwork to show what they were upset about as no duty owed or any inspection done to invoice or package ups would just say it was all internal paperwork and the process UPS had to do to bring a package across the boarder. So i just tried to avoid ups but sadly then [this was the 90s and early 2000s] for some reason many of the vendors i used insisted on ups to the us, total PITA.

 

Luckily never had a single customs charge with probably a couple of thousand packages of packages from japan and china over the last 30 years so fortunate. Life does not look so simple in the future here, but hopefully something reasonable will work out with all this stuff, but maybe thats being too optimistic.

 

jeff

[bill937ca]

UPS lost a class action law suit years ago in Canada over the bogus customs brokerage fee.  I was on the list and twice got a payment for damages.   First because I was on the list and second time because there was money left over!

Edited 27 minutes ago by bill937ca

[cteno4]

Bummer it looks like at the time the only lawsuit against ups here in the us was by the gov and they got a $25M fine, no class action in the us. Looks like there are some big class actions going right now against fedex, DHL, and ups over custom safes being applied to small de minimis shipments.

 

In the end it’s these fees i worry about the most as they will probably be quite unregulated [consumer protection is in trouble here] and no way to fight back on them really. They could easily be more than the duty owed.

 

jeff