---- Customs ----

Just went to the Post Office yesterday (its opposite my school. I went and spoke to the manager and asked him how musical instruments are taxed...It goes like this somehow:

Customs duty is about 20% on a guitar , then they add their usual transportation , handling etc etc and it comes up to 34.42% on a guitar coming from a Factory/Shop..

Customs duty is 17% on a guitar , that comes from a private home such as a friend etc etc. And it has to have GIFT written on it. You cant have GIFT written on a guitar that's coming from a shop or such...If you do, they will call you to the P.O and interrogate you lol.

Customs on pedals,pedalcases,cables etc (Accessories) is 17% from Shop/Factory. No clue about the customs faced when coming from a friends place.

Customs on gold plated,rimmed,edged items is 35% and can vary from product to product.

When sending a guitar/Importing a guitar the guy told me to have the following done :
1.Packing should be extra secure- Lots of bubble paper , cardboard and preferably hard case.

2.Paste an invoice of whats in the box on the package and make it clearly visible to avoid being called by Customs to the PO.

By doing so they will just send you a letter saying your parcel has arrived , please collect it at your local POST OFFICE. If there isnt an invoice you have to do the following:
1.Give a letter with:
- Detailed description of the package and whats in it .
- Maximum price of the guitar.

2.Meet the customs guy and explain what it is.

All this is if you get the guitar through speed post, and other such courier services. If you are getting a guitar through FedEx etc....they pay whatever Customs asks and you pay them later. Whereas in Speed Post, EMS etc if they put 100% Customs on you...you can appeal for 35% .

I SAW THE CUSTOMS BOOK AND IT SAID 35% , as for the others...not too sure!
Thanks,
Laney

 

+10000, :beer:

 

So, you should have paid 17% on your Ishibashi pedalboard, right?

 

Yeah , i did.

 

Any chance of getting this stickied for the peeps who come around asking ?

 

Laney, its brilliant that you went out and made this effort. However, not much use stickying this, as the information here is not correct. You should go back and render a resounding kick up your postmaster's behind.

First, customs duty on guitars in India is at the highest rate of duty which is

basic duty - 10% (reduced from 12.5 last year)
Countervalining duty (CVD) - 16% of 60 % of the MRP (in your case they could take the selling price if they are in a good mood)
Education cess on CVD - 3%
Overal Cess - 3% on all of the above.

Now remember all this is calculated on the assessable value, which is cost + insurance + freight + 1% handling charge (for assessment purpose only). In case of air shipment, the freight is taken at actuals or 20% of the product cost, whichever is lower.

There is no discrimination between gifts and purchases, or from friend or a shop. Everything is taxed equally, unless you can prove the one from a friend is used. Invoices are needed for that.

If you declare something is gold plated, you would end up in trouble cos they would then arbitrarily assess the amount of gold used for plating and levy Rs 100 + cess on every gram of gold.

And the bit about Fedex and DHL etc is true, they do tend to levy 40% flat, but then it generally works out equal to the 10% + 16% + 3 % + 3% of assessable value, because in this case they don't dig into the MRP, they just use the purchase price. However, the bit about appealing to customs if EMS puts 100% is laughable, this was just an attempt by the post office guy to sell his services to you over the private ones like DHL etc.

Mind you, exceptions are there, and if you get a good assessing officers, they could be kind enough and use some loophole to even get you the stuff for free. But equally bad, they could make you pay twice as much too, and there is nothing, i repeat nothing practical that you can do to redress that. However, going by the customs book and only by the customs handbook latest edition 2007, what I have written above stands. If you need more info, go check at www.cbec.gov.in, this is the official Board for Customs and Excise website. You should find this more reliable, unless your postmaster knows some customs guys who can circumvent the rules. But again, why do you need to know the postmaster for that, enough to carry a couple gandhis in your pocket and the customs guys will write whatever you declare.

 

^Now its worth a sticky . I met the head guy at the office and not some post man. He took out some huge book and showed it to me...i read it and it said 35% and then i asked him why he put a 17% tax on my pedals and he said because it was under electronic item / music. And then he said there is less customs on GIFTS

 

Anyway he said if i brought in a guitar he would give 35% on it and no more

 

pm neo

there are no active mods around.....

 

meh...if it should become a sticky it will....nvm forcing them to sticky it lol

 

And Wisdom ushered through the mouth of the Great !!!

 

....sanjiv...are you in the customs dept or summing

 

Perhaps Don? :think:

 

^^^LOL yazi DON ?????

 

I wouldn't pay 35% even if my guitar cost $35.

 

then get friendly with the guys

 

I got friendly with guys abroad. :grin:

 

Don as in smuggling?

And how friendly?

 

he gave them something ?

 

Since we are on Customs, can someone tell the exact limit(in INR) that a person who is visiting US for more than 3 days can bring back with him? IIRC it was Rs 25K. This is the only way to legally get in your stuff at US price..wait for someone to come down.