Customs declaration for some surge arrestors

[Terry]

I have a colleague who wants to post 3 surge arrestors to me from Singapore. They would be in a small parcel. They don't cost that much, but I have found it almost impossible to get them here.

Any advice on customs declaration to be made by sender?

Would appreciate any experienced answer on this

Thanks
T

[Ginjaninja]

If the value is under 1K thb then there should be no issue.
eBay-Hong Kong (surge arrestor)
Have you tried a bit of poetic licence? E.g. battery charger?
GN.

[Nereus]

I don`t believe it makes a great deal of difference just what it is. It may make a difference where it comes from, but I think the biggest difference is where it is sent to in Thailand.

I get parts sent from the UK to Bangkok and have never had to pay anything. (by post, NOT by DHL etc.)
But I have had to pay on stuff sent from Australia. The last time the **cks hit me up on a model tractor! I would have them send it to your office in Bangkok and ask the sender to include some type of invoice, a dummy one probably better. All postage goes through the mail center in Chiang Wattana, and it seems that items delivered in Bangkok have a better chance than those sent on to the provinces.

[hhfarang]

I just had a birthday gift of a t-shirt, a pair of flip-flops, and a phone charger sent to me by my daughter and she took off all the tags and wrappings, put in a note in Thai that said it was a birthday present and I still got charged 800 baht duty. It is not worth sending anything here as you may end up paying more than it is worth to receive it. This has happened to me 3 times now.

[hhinner]

Was that by post or by courier HHF? And as Ginjaninja, says up to 1000 baht should be free of duty. In my experience the courier companies suck.

[Khundon1975]

I just had a birthday gift of a t-shirt, a pair of flip-flops, and a phone charger sent to me by my daughter and she took off all the tags and wrappings, put in a note in Thai that said it was a birthday present and I still got charged 800 baht duty. It is not worth sending anything here as you may end up paying more than it is worth to receive it. This has happened to me 3 times now.

hhfarang
HH look on the bright side.
You are now the proud owner of 3 T shirts, 3 pairs of flip flops and 3 phone chargers.

Terry posting anything to Thailand is a crap shoot, no matter how it is sent. Customs seem to pluck the amount they are going to charge you out of the air. Mostly, in the hope you won't pay and they get to keep the goods.

[Homer]

Any advice on customs declaration to be made by sender?

Seems surge suppressors have 10% tariff, if they stick to the tariff schedule. It's online.
http://www.dft.go.th/LinkClick.aspx?fil ... &tabid=161

Officially, import duty varies by item classification. My favorite is leather gloves, mittens or mitts have 40% duty on their declared value, unless it's sports equipment, then it's 10%.

Sender can be creative, maybe customs won't spot it, e.g. declare a value lower than actual. If Customs sticks to the tariff schedule and items can be passed off as one of several things, then declaring them to be something other than what they are would reduce duty. But what happens if Customs catches the 'mistake'?

All my shipments have been by lowest cost USPS international package, which is then delivered by EMS once it exits customs in Bangkok. The only time duty was substantial, 40%, it matched the tariff schedule, though there was also a small unlabeled tea money amount

[Ratsima]

I regularly order stuff from China via AliExpress and have never had to pay duty. The stuff ranges from a water pump for my pond to batteries and chargers to towels and other household stuff.

Just lucky, so far.

[VincentD]

Terry
have been searching for these elusive thingies for quite some time and actually ran into them by accident in a small shop near Rayong. They look like they're made in China - single ones cost around 600 baht each and there was a set or two with banks of three connected together. Said I'd look in another day. They're about the size of a single circuit breaker so I assume would fit directly into your standard fuse box...

[hhfarang]

Was that by post or by courier HHF? And as Ginjaninja, says up to 1000 baht should be free of duty. In my experience the courier companies suck.

It was by regular post (U.S. registered post so it had a tracking number). I tracked it once my daughter said she sent it and it left the U.S. in two days, then was stuck in customs here a week then delivered in three more days.

Actually it wasn't delivered. The local postal worker rang our doorbell and told us we would have to pick it up at the post office and pay the duty. We got a customs slip with it and they valued it at 2000 baht so the duty was about 40% of value.

Although I thought gifts were duty free, actually, I was probably lucky. It was a $75 pair of flip flops (yes they have those in the U.S.), $35 T-shirt, and one of those phone travel re-chargers that also has speakers so acts as a mini boom box. I think it was about $100 so the 2000 baht evaluation by customs was low by around 5k baht.

[Nereus]

They're about the size of a single circuit breaker so I assume would fit directly into your standard fuse box...

Where has Terry stated that the "surge protectors" are those shown in the link by GN?
They are telephone line RJ45 type protectors. They have nothing to do with fitting in a fuse box, or the size of a circuit breaker.

The question was concerning the customs declaration by the sender.
Every country has their own paperwork for export items, and whatever Singapore has will have to be followed by the sender, and may or may not be taken any notice of by Thai customs.

And the same will apply to the applied customs rate: they will put what they want on it regardless of some rule! More so if the "officer" happens to think they might be of use to him, and more than likely he will not even know what the hell it is!

[VincentD]

Link doesn't open for me. I was assuming surge protector for lightning strike as I've had this damage my fridge a year or so ago. Customs is a hit or miss thing, declare the lowest value you can and label it as a sample so you won't get hit too badly.
I got charged 1000 baht for a radar detector, courier company coughed up first but let me know beforehand.

[Terry]

Actually folks, these things are custom made, single phase, in line, surge filters - not commercially available and produced by a boffin that I know, that lives in Singapore.........................

Anyways, methinks I'll get him to post these to me at my Bangkok address with a declared value of 3 x THB 330 each - then hope for the best.

Thanks for all the feedback

T

[barrys]

Very slightly off topic but ....

... on 2 occasions I've had items sent from China and had them listed as replacement of defect item under guarantee.

It worked, no import duty levied - just a thought......

[hhinner]

I believe that there's a free trade agreement between ASEAN and China, so there should be a lot of stuff duty free. I've bought stuff from China - phones, tablets (not in numbers to be statistically significant, but...) - which haven't had duty levied, but have had VAT applied - but that's only 7%. The fact that VAT has been applied shows that the parcel has been evaluated for tax purposes.
Always by post, not courier.