Selling to the USA

[Seahorse]

Ive been chatting to someone on another forum(yes, Im sorry to cheat on you)its not a craft forum tho.
We are both arty/crafty so I sent her my link.
She says she liked my stuff and may treat herself(she is in teh USA), which is nice but she doesnt have to..but...my question is...Do I have any taxes to pay if I sell abroad?

I receievd a booklet form the IR and it said something like 'if yuo buy or sell to other countries there are taxes youl need to pay'.

For some reason Im assuming this is the tax you pay at the post office, but this is just an assumption.
Does anybody know what im talking about?

[Bowed Over]

I know there is import export taxes but I think it depens on what you are shipping and what the amounts are. Maybe check the IR web or give them a phone.

Cheers.

Lisa

[MrSwirl]

Hi,

The tax that you pay is no different to selling anywhere else, i.e. you need to pay tax on your earnings.

The person importing the goods may need to pay import duty to receive the goods though. I'm not sure what the threshold is for importing into America, but this is something that the buyer pays, not the seller. You complete a customs declaration, and based on what you declare there, they pay import duty.

MrS

[Christine 1]

This is interesting, i know this post is an old one but just going through some ones i haven't seen yet.

I have had someone enquire about the stamps that i have for sale and one of them said she would love to. However she is in Australia i think it was and wasn't sure how i would go about pricing them up as well as sorting out customs.

Anyone got any tips for me?

Many thanks,

Christine

[aurrida]

if you want to do it officially you will fill out a export declaration form to be used by customs in both countries. generally, as the supplier you pay nothing more, but i guess there are some raw goods where you would pay a tax?

the customer may or may not have to pay import duties and or local tax.

if you send by normal mail, no declaration, then it may or may not be stopped by customs. if it is stopped then customer will then have to pay or not whatever the case thats all. Incidentally, anything of value should be declared, including gifts.

Some carriers like UPS have there own tax collecting powers and there will be no way around you importing and not paying import duties or exporting and your customer not paying import duties.

bit of a bummer really.

[Pebbles]

I bought some beads off ebay without really thinking about all this, they came in an envelope marked "gift" from Hong Kong

This may not be legal, but hey, I was on the receiving end

[CurlyFries]

I've sold items to the US and parts of Europe and not paid anything extra in the way of tax. I just took my items to the post office and posted them without having to fill in extra forms.

I did get stung by Customs and Excise once when I bought some fancy wood blanks from the US - I wasn't happy as it was about £17 but, hey, I had to cough up.

[WolfSong2000]

I don't know about sending goods to the USA, but recieving them can be expensive if they're over a certain limit. This is especially true if the post is being dealt with by Royal Mail as they charge an obscene amount if your package has gone through customs. Fedex are cheaper with their fees, so I recommend them over Royal Mail for importing.

But as others have said, any import/duty fees are the responsibility of the buyer, not the seller so if you're selling to the USA I see no reason why you should have to pay any additional fees.