How much will I now pay in duties to ship a stylus from Japan?


Anybody import a phono cartridge/stylus from Japan since the August 29 when the old $800 duty-free threshold ended? I am interested in importing a vintage stylus that costs about $200. Worried about how much I will have to pay. Do the mail carries charge the duty before delivery? How much should I expect to pay? Any tips and what to ask the Ebay seller?

mrgopal

@testpilot 

"I assume that the customer paid for goods and then refused delivery.  Why not just deduct your cost of the transaction from the refund owed?"

As I said in my post, Fedex delivered the goods THEN billed him for taxes later so he already had the goods and refused to pay the tax and fee that he was responsible for. He was given the choice as to what carrier he preferred too. I assume that Fedex does this so they don't have a pile of package stuck in Customs. This is the 1st time I've ever experienced this. It wasn't an Audiogon transaction but I wanted to share this info in case it happens to someone here.

"I can't say how much duty will be on a cartridge, but I just purchased a Luxman L-509Z on eBay from Japan. It was a brand-new unit and with taxes it cost me $7000. When it arrived in Los Angeles on Thursday I was hit with $1000 in tariffs! I was expecting something a little high, but not $1000. 

I still ended up with a unit selling in the USA for over $14,000 for $8000 but it did hurt a bit..."

@cdhumiston Didn't you also say in another thread that you had to use a stepdown transformer because the Luxman is Japanese voltage and it's also well known that Luxman and other mfg's won't honor their warrantees for purchases from overseas?  Bummer!

herman, If what you say is true, that shippers have to calculate tariff (duty) based on country of manufacture, not country from which the shipment originated, that seems really awkward

Of course it is true. If not,  companies from countries with high tariffs would first ship to a country with low tariffs and then on to the US, which has already been going on.

https://time.com/7300087/trump-us-vietnam-trade-deal-china-transshipments/

 

@faustuss yes, that is true. I am using a transformer, and I was told that the unit would not be warrantied in the USA. These Japanese stereo units being sold on eBay are for the Japanese market. That is why they are at such a lower price. I was willing to take the chance to save $8000

I imported a SUT in September.  Duty was 15%.  Shipped with UPS and the process and the process was pretty simple.  Bought something else in October that was shipped with DHL.  That was a big pain so I would not use them again if I could avoid it.