Am Sonntag den, 30. Dezember 2001, um 17:52, schrieb Frank Gruendel:
[Fun with UPS and customs fees]
What I can recommend regarding imports from USA to Germany:
- Use USPS/Deutsche Post whenever possible.
You'll get a notice in your mailbox, there's a package at your customs
office.
Visit them and deal everything out there. At least in Paderborn, employees
there were very polite and helpful. They are used to deal with truck
drivers and have little experience with private persons. Ask them for
taking a look at their customs fees book to find out, which number
describes your parts best. These lists seems to be written in the 1950 and
never changed, you'll have no problems finding livestock or atomic reactor
parts, but computer equipment is not mentioned. I once imported the $15
ethernet PC-cards and had to declare them as 2-layer electronic
circuitboards, because nothing matched better. Most items are free customs
fees, you only have to pay import VAT (Einfuhrumsatzsteuer).
- Ask the sender to declare the value as low as possible, dead batteries
should be declared as a value of $0 on the green customs sticker. Items
less than 50DM (I don't know how they changed that in Euro) are free of
tax and customs fees.
- If you have to use a parcel carrier besides USPS, never use UPS, they
add special handling fees for customs services. I have better experience
with FedEx.
Best regards,
Carsten
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