Customs Duties, Taxes, and Brokerage Fees. What are they? Who pays?

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URL: http://www.islamic-bookstore.net/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=14
Article ID: 14
Created On: 28 Jan 2007 06:09 PM

Answer These are fees collected by the country where the order is being shipped to. We have no control over this. All international customers are responsible for these charges. Please review below.

IMPORTANT: In general, if you choose a USPS shipping method (US MAIL), this gets delivered in the local country by the government postal service, thereby saving some amount of brokerage and/or other courier-specific charges. (examples of this shipping method are USPS Global Express Mail, and Worldmail). Note: We CANNOT be held responsible for any type of taxes, brokerage fees, or duties, levied upon the recipient when receiving a parcel that comes from us in the USA.

Also, we DO NOT change the customs value of merchandise. We cannot declare lower amounts that what the merchandise is worth.

Duties & Taxes

All items entering a foreign country are subject to customs inspection and the assessment of duties and taxes in accordance with that country's national laws. Customs duties and taxes are assessed, generally, if the merchandise is dutiable and the value of the item is above the threshold set by the country's laws. If duties and taxes are assessed on an item mailed via the Postal Service, they are collected from the recipient.

Country-specific information on duties:

In addition, for most countries, there is an administrative fee that is collected from the recipient to cover the costs of clearing the item through customs and collecting duties and taxes. For instance, the administrative fee in the United Kingdom is 6.50 British pounds for airmail parcels and 11.25 British pounds for Global Express Mail; in 23 countries in Europe (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Monaco, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, San Marion, Vatican City, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Adorra, Gilbratar, Sweden, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein) the administrative fee is 17 Euros for Global Express Mail and Global Airmail Parcel Post; and the administrative fee in Canada is $5 Canadian for Global Airmail Parcel Post. Business mailers have the option to pay the duties, taxes or fees to certain countries through an International Customized Mail Agreement.