How much tariff if buying $10k from Japan?

@abnerjack you spoke with FedEx employees in the US? 

Last year I sent a package to India. It was 2 DVDs and a laptop. The laptop 15 years old, I sent it for the hard drive. 

I declared the value, paid all the fees but in India it was not released by the customs unless the recipient paid another $200. They had no explanation. It was ransom. I have many stories like that shipping to all over the World regularly.

In most developing countries that's how the government works. There is no taxpayer BS. There is no representation. Every agency may very well be a criminal enterprise. But people don't call it that, they just call it business as usual. 

Now Americans get to experience this first hand, Customs are encouraged to make life difficult for buying stuff from abroad. 

@parkergetdean I don't think they were in the US, but they wouldn't tell me where they were.  They are not employees of Fedex, but work for an organization that contracts to Fedex.  The people that I talked to do not answer to Fedex.  I elevated this to the supervisor level and was told that I had no recourse if I wasn't satisfied with their answer and eventually they hung up on me.  I googled how to make a complaint and was referred to the same (main) customer service number.  When I called again the person asked me my problem and wasn't going to help me until I told him the Fedex website said that if I had a complaint to call this number.  At this point he said he would initiate the complaint and gave me a case number and told me I would get a call back from a local representative within 24 hours.  That was last Thursday and I still haven't received a call back.

This is the exact situation I found myself in with Best Buy about a year ago.  It's quite frustrating to be treated like something less than a valued customer.  This is the MO that I think was initially adopted by Comcast/Xfinity.  The philosophy apparently is that it is more profit effective to spend less on customer service and use savings to churn more business.  A have a close relative who works for Pepsi and says that they are now contracting the customer service to another company.  That is why I am always very, very complimentary of good customer service when I get it.  I'm afraid at the macro level service is a thing of the past.

moderation at work, scared of basic facts.

I recently (10/02/2025) purchased a Luxman L-509Z direct from Japan for $7000 which included tax. Tariffs to California were $1000. I was a little shocked and didn’t expect that much.

The unit sells for $16K here with tax so I was still happy with the purchase.

@abnerjack  When anything is coming from another country, it generally needs a "customs broker" to file the paperwork, collect and remit the taxes and fees etc. I would expect the additional money FedEx is collecting from you is to cover their services in this regard.  They do nothing for free.  Cheers.