This is not a question that really relates to anything for this forum but thought maybe some would know about it.
I have ordered a product from Hong Kong about 3-5 times a year for the past 4 years. It is thousands of a tiny items made of silicone that I sell on ebay. Nothing that is trademark infringement just an accessory for electronics. Never once had them hold a package and a few times they had inspected the package and seal it back up with their inspection tape.
So this time customs held my package and I have to wait however long to get their letter about why it is held. It was valued at $2300 which from the research I have just done is considered an informal entry since it is under $2500. However I now see that not paying duty fee's is only for goods that are for personal consumption, and I guess thousands of silicone pieces is going to look like a resell item to them.
So a few questions I have are.
How will this end? Will I just pay the taxes due for the $2300 it was declared at?
Will they fine me? Or will they make their own guess at it's value and tax me for that amount. I can only assume they will be ignorant to the value of it.
From now on I want to just pay the import taxes. But I have no idea how to do this. What do I do to set up a shipment that I pick it up paying the import tax?
Last question is about the companies I buy from. If they are sending all these packages to go thru customs without the receiver paying import fee's would it not be possible for them to send packages out as something that would be intended for resale? Like that would make they pay different fee's in Hong Kong or would be a red flag for inspection then they would get in trouble or fined in their own country. This of course would mean I would have to take the chance they would seize more of my packages sending the way they and also take the loss of the seized package(no way they are going to sell to me again if I start a paypal dispute), or I would just have to quit selling the product all together and find a company that does it the legal way. IF there are any in Hong Kong that would do this the way USA intends them to.
I have ordered a product from Hong Kong about 3-5 times a year for the past 4 years. It is thousands of a tiny items made of silicone that I sell on ebay. Nothing that is trademark infringement just an accessory for electronics. Never once had them hold a package and a few times they had inspected the package and seal it back up with their inspection tape.
So this time customs held my package and I have to wait however long to get their letter about why it is held. It was valued at $2300 which from the research I have just done is considered an informal entry since it is under $2500. However I now see that not paying duty fee's is only for goods that are for personal consumption, and I guess thousands of silicone pieces is going to look like a resell item to them.
So a few questions I have are.
How will this end? Will I just pay the taxes due for the $2300 it was declared at?
Will they fine me? Or will they make their own guess at it's value and tax me for that amount. I can only assume they will be ignorant to the value of it.
From now on I want to just pay the import taxes. But I have no idea how to do this. What do I do to set up a shipment that I pick it up paying the import tax?
Last question is about the companies I buy from. If they are sending all these packages to go thru customs without the receiver paying import fee's would it not be possible for them to send packages out as something that would be intended for resale? Like that would make they pay different fee's in Hong Kong or would be a red flag for inspection then they would get in trouble or fined in their own country. This of course would mean I would have to take the chance they would seize more of my packages sending the way they and also take the loss of the seized package(no way they are going to sell to me again if I start a paypal dispute), or I would just have to quit selling the product all together and find a company that does it the legal way. IF there are any in Hong Kong that would do this the way USA intends them to.