The opposite way around is expensive.
When considering a HG from Olympic, I contacted the UK customs office (they
had no idea what a HG was) and they decided it was a violin for duty
purposes (they had a list of "known" instruments and try and match others to
it and it was either that or a "mechanical music" item which really meant a
barrel organ or music box) and the duty was around 17.5% plus a long series
of other charges for the paperwork etc which, even with the good exchange
rate, made too expensive.
I got mine from Germany and, as we are both in the EU, I didn't have to pay
anything else.
Of course, often they can't be bothered to charge.
I've never paid anything on CDs and DVDs although there is a charge shown on
the package!
Colin Hill
----- Original Message -----
From: "Greg Lindahl" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, September 19, 2008 10:33 PM
Subject: Re: [HG] Import duties on instruments coming into the U.S.
On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 02:24:51PM -0700, Connolly, James wrote:
Perhaps another way of asking is if your U.S. customers ever end up
paying import duties on what you send them. Any advice would be welcome.
I've purchased several musical instruments from overseas, and they
were labeled as such with a $$ value attached, and I've never had to
pay a duty.
Big companies generally use a shipping service, which handles paying
the duty. Our postal service isn't really set up to collect duties
from the recipient, unlike some other countries. So a commercial
shipment without a duty payment will be held in limbo until it's paid.
And they can't afford to do that for small items.
-- greg
