Thread: Double confirmation and a rant

Yikes, hopefully all they did is handle the razor and not take it for a test drive!

Products under $20 are tax and duty free. I know because I imported a number of Badger Bristle samples from China a while back. They were declared at $20us and identified as samples. I was told by a brokerage firm that contacted me regarding the taxes due, that the limit was $20can and anything over that was subject to taxes and (if applicable) duties.

Duty is rarely charged. It is a government imposed surcharge, set up to defend internal markets. For some reason, books seem to be hit with duty charges more than anything else I buy.

Still, it is a pain in the ass when customs checks my $25 package, charges me $3 in tax and $5 for the service. Regardless of value, the charge is always $5.

I got hit with taxes when Colleen sent me a large box of soap samples to send out with my brushes. Despite being labelled as product samples to be given away, with no commerical value, I still had to pay about $30 to get them out of the clink.