duty on gear from japan

Hi
all you tokai fans. I'm in the uk, and i've always fancied getting a tokai from japan, but been put off by
a) p&p, and
b) duty imposed by customs and excise, or post office or whoever the 'man' is who charges.

my question is this- there must be quite a lot of you folks who've got stuff from japan, and what i need to know is how are these charges worked out? e.g if i win a nice tokai on e-bay for about ?300, pay another ?100 on p&p, (still a bargain), then how much am i going to get stung with duty charges?
thanks for your time.

can't help you...i import them to the u.s. and there are no charges.

Hi Toweysan,

If you search on "Import" or "Duty" or whatever, then you?ll find considerable discussion of this. But briefly;- the Import Duty itself isn?t much at all, ie only about 3.5% to 4% (can?t remember the precise figure), but of course you?ll get charged 17.5% Vat on top of all the total charges.

Shipping shouldn?t be as much as ?100 ? most I?ve seen is $130, ie about ?70.

But, for example:-..?.if the guitar itself costs say ?300, plus ?100 shipping, then Duty of 4% would make it ?400 + ?16. Then you?d pay 17.5% Vat on that total, ie ?416 + ?73, ie a final total of ?490.

If you?re really unlucky the UK Customs may decide to open the box and check the contents, for which I?m told they will charge you ?20 extra for ?handling? ! On the other hand, it seems UK customs deliberately let through one parcel in twenty without charging ANY Duty or Vat at all (that happened to me on one guitar ? no charges at all) :-? .

Ian.

Hi Toweysan,

I bought a guitar a few weeks ago, as Ian says is correct but I also had too pay a Parcel Force 'handling charge' of ?14 hmmmph!!
The charge for shipping was around ?85 and was fully insured.
I would buy direct from Japan again (the deal went without a hitch) but would order a make not readily available outside Japan ie Edwards,Greco,Navigator or Burny etc,Tokai,Yamaha, Ibanez or Aria can be picked up in the UK for the same money (taking into account shipping,handling and duty).

pb

Hi,
I find the rates of duty confusing too. I have bought over a dozen items from the States over the last year, and some have come straight through with no duty or handling charges, then others for no particular reason seem to have been held for upto a couple of weeks (our customs ?) and then I have been charged a heavty handling charge by Parcelforce plus the Import Duty.
On the other hand though, I bought a Guitar Body from the excellent "mijsixstringkatana" on Ebay (he is in Japan) and it arrived 4 days after payment with no duty or handling charges to pay, brilliant.
I bought a Burny Les Paul Custom from Hisashi in Japan this morning, so it will be interesting to see how long it takes and if I have to pay charges. Will keep you posted.
Nik
(Birmingham UK)

Hi guys
There doesn't seem to be much consistancy regarding customs does there? . As has already been said you should expect duty and VAT to be levied on all imported guitars ( be nice if we didn't though wouldn't it ?) so you need to budget for it when you buy or bid for items. It's a bit galling when that bargain that you picked up off Ebay in the States or Japan suddenly ends up costing getting on for twice as much !!
I recently bought eight guitars through Ebay, all of which came from Japan. Out of the eight the first three I paid no duty or VAT whatever(cool) the other five I was charged VAT , BUT only one had duty on !!! It's the VAT that hurts because that is liable on the already high cost of shipping as well as the goods value :evil:
Try asking the seller to mark the guitar's value down on the shipping ticket. They are wise to this though and sometimes assess the guitars worth by opening up the package :-?
Of course then Parcel Force have to sting you for even more of your hard earned by charging a handling fee -- OUCH !!!
Best of luck !!!

so do you guys pay those charges on goods shipped though the post office as well? I ask because, I have sent several of guitars from Japan to America and Canada with no charges... I have also shipped to Sweden and Belgium and as far as I knw, only one guy paid some added charges in Belgium... always use the postal service and insure the guitars plus I write them up as gifts. Takes about a week door to door and so far no damage.
Seems to work for me.

The problem with asking a seller to mark the value down though is that if the Guitar was lost or damaged, the insurance would probably only pay the declared value, not what you paid for it. So you have to weigh up the risk factor first !
Nik

Yea, quite right Nik.
You have to weigh up the risks. Although you could potentially save a bit on a high end guitar by getting the value marked down I wouldn't do it on something expensive it isn't worth the risk of not being able to claim the full value in the event that something occured in transit.
Something I tried was asking for necks and bodies (fender style guitars only obviously !!!!) to be seperated and labeled 'used guitar parts'. Didn't work - that seemed like a red rag to a bull to the Gestapo at Heathrow - they ripped the box opened and investigated that one !!!!
I haven't tried the label as a gift idea - but I think you are only allowed gift values up to a certain amount ( ?36 quid I think ) , so I think that would be a non-starter anyway.

Also the seller could possibly get in trouble for falsely declaring the description or value of the item. So I think its best not to ask. The best deals seem to be in Japan at the moment though, have you seen how cheap some of the Silver Star Strats have been lately ? Buy it Now prices at around ?175 !! The Burny Les Paul Custom I bought yesterday from Japan worked out at ?216 plus shipping, a bargain in my book !!
Nik

Oh yes indeedy Nik !!
I have recently bought two Silver Stars - both good deals from Japan.
Wake up guys these a good Strats ! Funny how people only seem to want the usual Goldstars and Springy Sounds. So what if they have they mostly have 3 bolt necks , they are still way superior in IMHO to some of the chud that Fender were chucking out in the mid to late '70s (having owned some).Lighter weights and much better neck joints for instance for a start.
I picked up a seriously nice Burny Les Paul that no one else seemed interested in ( ?165 including shipping !!!) - flamed top studio style - dirt cheap - great build quality- and fanbloodytastic sounding after recutting the nut and polishing the frets !! The original nut height was ridiculously way off the mark.
Jap guitars certainly have great build quality, but do they not know how to setup guitars in Japan ??? Neck tilt angles are almost always out. One Silver Star I received was unplayable cos of the forward bow on the neck. A quick tweak of the truss rod and it was right as rain though.
So I would advise ,unless you know what you are doing guitar setup wise ,always budget for a professional setup too.

in this city in Japan all guitars are tuned down until a customer wants to try it, at that point it is tuned up. As soon as the customer returnes the guitar to the hands of the shop staff it is detuned again. I`m no exoert but this cnstant tuning and detuning without adjusting the truss rod can`t be good for the neck. Can`t tell you how many acoustics I`ve seen with a hump where the neck joins the body... high end guitars too. Theres only one shop in this city that will take the time to do a set up but only if you ask, the other stores do not, and frankly I wouldn`t want most of the staff even trying it on my guitars... plus, shops here don`t have techs, only sales staff. It`s like going to Walmart for guitars.

Anyone know if there is a hold up with imports at the moment? I've been waiting over three weeks for 3 parcels from the US.

It seems consistant as a Strat I bought in Feb turned up over 3 weeks later!

BTW. Parcelforce tracking website is kak!

Can't track my parcels and another that turned up last week still isn't showing as delivered on the tracking website.

USPS and Parcelforce systems are incompatible.

So much for "shoulder to shoulder" eh Tony Blair?