Australian orders

[bass917]

Looking for advice from aussies that have ordered Warmoth guitars recently. Im wanting to order a new strat neck and body but am worried about import fees and hidden customs costs. Ive noticed that when i order them separately (neck or body only) that Warmoth includes what appears to be G.S.T. (Warmoth calls it Aus-Tax), but ordered together the fee isnt there. I contacted Warmoth and they said tax would be collected by them on orders under $1000 au and cutoms would collect fees on $1000 and over.
Am i better doing 2 smaller orders or both together? I looked at customs site and it all gets a bit confusing with GST, import duty and import application fees so looking for help if someones done it all recently.
Also is there a preferred shipper (UPS/USPS).
Thanks in advance an apologies if this has been addressed in the past (couldnt find any posts on it). 

 

[Re-Pete]

Rightio, been buying off & on from Warmoth for years. Not a lot of gear but still I have some experience...

Warmoth are right about the tax collection. Orders over Aus$1000 will involve Customs clearance in Australia with tax charges being levied and needed to be paid.... IF you involve UPS they will act as Customs Broker for you but from recollection when that happened to me, they charge a fee too.... but then once that was paid & the time cleared, they delivered to me and I was lucky to be home.... Another time, when the USPS started the delivery & Aust Post took charge I got an advice from them and had to front up to a clearing house (it was in Granville in Sydney - I was living in Sydney at the time), and once I paid the tax they handed over the body....

Nowadays, Warmoth collects for the Aust Govt on smaller orders... It used to be that orders UNDER Aus$1000 (inc Shipping cost) slipped through Australian Tax collection but that doesn't happen now.

If an order for under Aus$1000 is processed by Warmoth, they will now send it but as you noticed, they ask you to pay Australian Tax on order...

My preference is to put it through USPS...... Only once has a part gone missing and that was a stupid situation where someone (I'm not sure who) misread the Sender's Address - which had the "WA" State abbreviation on it for Washington State, USA - for the Delivery Address (me) & the neck took a cross continent trip from where it landed in NSW to Western Australia (!) - "WA" State abbreviation in Australia - and then back, once I started chasing it up....I never knew my town had a similar named town in Western Australia, which is where it was diligently heading for... :tard:

BTW, that part arrived in good condition despite the Continent hop....

I tend to go for the USPS delivery options because my Australia Post contractors for parcels in my area actually tries to deliver. YMMV in your suburb/region. Nonetheless, I find it much better popping up to the local post office to pick up parcels than I do driving around trying to find a UPS Depot or whoever they sub-contract deliveries to, in my region....

As a side note I have also found it VERY frustrating if a courier service/ online retailer tenders out their work to a middle-man company called Shipp It. Once they get involved it creates ANOTHER level of bureaucracy that only Indian Call Centres could be more irritating than. I cancelled a delivery from an Australian Online Music Gear Retailer because they used Shipp It and Shipp It were playing silly buggers with the order. Then suddenly a card was thrown at my door while I was home, saying I had to call into THEIR depot to pick it up.... I think what happens when Shipp It gets involved they tender out the work to whoever wants it and I think they rip off the drivers by charging for the work contract and naturally, the drivers aren't too keen to waste much time delivering the parcel. I now steer clear of local orders if they confirm that they use Shipp it.... I think the poor courier drivers get done over by this.

 

[Rick]

Not related to tax, but to go from upstate ny to Perth, wa, takes 30.5 hours with a one hour lay over in Hong Kong. 

 

[aarontunes]

Yes, you guys are correct.

Warmoth must collect tax on AU orders under $1k. Orders over $1k are handled via the mechanisms of the Australian government.

In theory there should be no advantage either way, as the same tax would be due regardless of who collects it. In reality I know there are other factors that can make one way easier or more difficult to deal with than the other. I can't offer you any insight there, unfortunately.

I know it's a little confusing. Please understand that Warmoth is doing what we are required to do by law. Trust me...we would much prefer not having to collect and remit tax for another country.  :doh:

 

[BigSteve22]

Not related to tax, but to go from upstate ny to Perth, wa, takes 30.5 hours with a one hour lay over in Hong Kong.

That's funny, but not too far from truth. Choosing the right shipping option is not obvious in most cases! I'm in the Hudson Valley, I had an order, shipped UPS "Second Day", go from central Connecticut, (about a 2 hour drive from me), to Newark NJ, then by air to Nashville TN, and back to Newark, before arriving at the local UPS office too late to deliver until the next day. For them to get from Connecticut to New Jersey, they practically have to drive past my house. When I called UPS to ask what was going on, their response was: "All second day shipments have to go through Nashville." For some reason, an 1800 mile detour made sense. And just BTW, that was my first order from this company, now when I place an order, I just use their standard shipping, and it comes right to me, in two days.
:icon_scratch:
Good luck, Bass917...

 

[bass917]

Thanks guys, i guess im worried that if my order is over 1k that customs will charge import duty (5%), and although i understand we have a free trade deal with the USA it seems a little muddy on the customs web site. They also state they charge an import processing fee and ive heard of others that have been charged a fee to open and check there goods, so i guess the less customs have to do with it the better. Is there a "chance" of it going through with no fees (GST/import etc) or it this now a given, and assuming i order a 1k or less order with Warmoth (and they collect the GST) will customs just wave it through or will there be the same scrutiny?

 

[BigSteve22]

...ive heard of others that have been charged a fee to open and check there goods, so i guess the less customs have to do with it the better....

That's funny too, (not really funny, more just messed up), they charge you a fee to open your package, and decide how much more they want to charge you! Guess governments are the same no matter where you live. Don't know if it's the best decision, (sitting in another country, 10,000 miles away), but from what you've said, Id probably split the order and pay the taxes up front. Especially of it expedites the process. What ever you decide, good luck, and welcome to the addiction!

 

[Logrinn]

What Steve said.

Also - 5% import duty?!

If I’m not mistaken I usually pay a customs fee of somewhere around 30% (this applies to Sweden) on top of the value of what I pay from Warmoth. So $1000 worth of stuff translates to a cost of around $1300 in the end.

But it’s totally worth it. I haven’t found any guitar manufacturer except Warmoth that gives me what I want at such high quality.

 

[stratamania]

Free trade agreements have nothing to do with being tax-free to the end consumer. They cover trade being free of tariffs between the countries involved.

So if something goes from the US to AUS, in this example, there is no tariff between them but you will be charged at the receiving end the import fees/handling and local taxes that are applied to you as a consumer.

Import fees/handling and local taxes vary from one country to another in terms of rates and types of tax but the principles are generally the same. (and it is often applied to the cost you paid for shipping)

The difference here with Aus is just lower amounts the seller has to collect the taxes on behalf of the Aus authorities and send it to them without being paid for the privilege of doing so. But ordering in smaller amounts will not mean you avoid paying taxes and you may pay more in the end as you will be paying probably several additional minimal shipping charges.

So order what you need regardless, have it shipped, let customs do their work and pay the fee in the knowledge you have saved yourself time and have been a responsible citizen in the process 

As Logrinn mentioned 5% is a very low rate and not worth the hassle of overthinking it.

 

[bass917]

Our tax  on imported goods or G.S.T, (goods and services tax) is 10% plus they then charge 5% import duty so 15% all told. I think though with are TRADE agreement goods manufactured in US are exempt of this tax (5% import duty). No one wants to spend more than they need ,and while the end product is worth the price  id rather not line government coffers ($487us neck = $920au without 5% duty).

 

[stratamania]

You are still getting off quite lightly with taxes. For Logrinn in Sweden, all told he needs to pay around 30%, for me when I receive stuff into the UK as a ballpark I have to add on around 23% so however you look at it Australian taxes are much lighter.

Of course, you don't want to pay more than you have to. But taxes are unavoidable.

 

[Rick]

Wait ...that’s not a joke ... literally, it takes 30.5 hours to take my body to the other side of the planet ... Perth is as far as you can get and still be in a city of over 100k and have a hair dryer.

 

[BigSteve22]

Not related to tax, but to go from upstate ny to Perth, wa, takes 30.5 hours with a one hour lay over in Hong Kong.

Dude, when you wrote "Perth, wa", I thought you meant "Perth, Washington"! That's why the layover in Hong Kong was so funny to me...  :icon_jokercolor:

 

[Rick]

Lol , that’s even funnier  :laughing11:

 

[Re-Pete]

Yes, you guys are correct.

Warmoth must collect tax on AU orders under $1k. Orders over $1k are handled via the mechanisms of the Australian government.

In theory there should be no advantage either way, as the same tax would be due regardless of who collects it. In reality I know there are other factors that can make one way easier or more difficult to deal with than the other. I can't offer you any insight there, unfortunately.

I know it's a little confusing. Please understand that Warmoth is doing what we are required to do by law. Trust me...we would much prefer not having to collect and remit tax for another country.  :doh:

The Australian dollar is weaker than the US Dollar. When ordering bodies & necks you had to be careful, in days gone past, NOT to trigger the Aus$1000 value inc shipping, especially when the Aust Dollar was weak in conversion rate,  or else the item got impounded by Customs and further delay occurred....

But for lower priced orders, you could get parts into Australia without paying tax at all....There simply wasn't enough effort/resources put into tax collection via the usual courier service or Postal service....  :icon_thumright:

Governments, being what they are (greedy) realised they were missing out on these smaller items for tax & the local retailers were lobbying them about this loophole.  :dontknow: The annoying thing is, though, that there is NOT a guitar parts manufacturer in Australia that I know of....Sure, we have Maton & Cole-Clark as guitar manufacturers, but not a parts industry....

So by going overseas we are not deliberately avoiding tax - that's where the manufacturers ARE ! Still though, for low cost items (probably under $200 Aus or so), the postal service STILL won't bother collecting any tax.....But now that's even closed a bit with major international sellers being asked to pay it on Order... I think if an Aussie bought a set of tuning machines from an online shop that was smaller than Warmoth, like say Wildwood Guitars or The Music Zoo, or a pickup from EMG directly, they might not have the capacity to pay the tax and because it is a small ticket item it still might get through tax free.

 

[Re-Pete]

Our tax  on imported goods or G.S.T, (goods and services tax) is 10% plus they then charge 5% import duty so 15% all told. I think though with are TRADE agreement goods manufactured in US are exempt of this tax (5% import duty). No one wants to spend more than they need ,and while the end product is worth the price  id rather not line government coffers ($487us neck = $920au without 5% duty).

TBH, it's best to let a Customs Broker do all that paperwork & get the Customs Clearance for you. I bought an amp from overseas in 2010 & I had the courier company use their Broker. They sent me an email, I called them the next day, spoke to them about the Clearance Procedures and what was involved, Ok'd it on the phone for them to Act for me,  gave them credit card details, they billed me and then it was out of Customs the next day & on it's way to me.

 

[bass917]

Ordered the neck today ,on its own, to test the waters so to speak. Not going to lie, im pretty excited.


Style: CBS Stratocaster®
Construction: Vintage/Modern Construction
Scale: 25-1/2"
Orientation: Left Handed
Neck Wood: 3A Birdseye Maple (One Piece)
Fingerboard Wood: 3A Birdseye Maple
Nut Width: 1-11/16"
Back Shape: Standard thin
Fret Size: SS6150 (Stainless)
Tuner Ream: Sperzel (25/64")
Radius: 10-16" Compound
Fret #: 22
Mounting Holes: Standard 4 Bolt
Inlays: Black Face Dots
Side Dots: Black Side Dots
String Nut: GraphTech White TUSQ XL - Standard Nut
Finish: Clear Satin Nitro

 

[Rick]

:cool01:

 

[BigSteve22]

Ordered the neck today ,on its own, to test the waters so to speak. Not going to lie, im pretty excited.

Sounds like great choices, hope you're elated with the results! :icon_thumright:

 

[BroccoliRob]

Ordered the neck today ,on its own, to test the waters so to speak. Not going to lie, im pretty excited.

why would you lie about something like that anyway? what a weird turn of phrase, am i rite?