Importing businesses are being hit with a double whammy (1) the dollar dropping and (2) an increase in the Customs Import Processing Charge [IPC] effective 01 January 2014.
Platinum® Freight Management Customs Broker Peter McRae says that if you have a business importing goods by sea freight with a value of more than $10,000 AUD, you’re about to be hit by an increased IPC of $102.60.
“That might not seem too much at first glance but if you’re a medium to big business bringing in containers each week, then you could be looking at thousands of extra dollars a year,” he says.
“How it will work is that every time those businesses or private individuals import goods worth more $10,000 the importer will be levied with this additional $102.60 – which will bring the total fee to $172.60 for Less than a Container Load [LCL] shipments and $190.60 for Full Container Load [FCL] shipments”, Mr McRae said.
“It will hit the many smaller businesses who import goods to sell from their online store, or on eBay as it’s not uncommon for online shops and eBay businesses to be importing $10,000 worth of goods in a month.
“It will also hit the bigger companies hard as many of the multinational enterprises [MNE’s] have various commodity lines being manufactured offshore, where they could have dozens of containers arriving in any given day throughout Australia.
“That number of businesses who import is growing and that is partly reflected in the latest Sydney Port Authority [SPA] figures; the SPA has seen an increase in containers by 3.7% compared to the previous year ending in April. Imports were dominated by products coming from East Asia (46.0%), Europe (16.3%) and South East Asia (15.3%), which combined account for 77.6% of total full container imports through the ports of Sydney.
“A saviour for importers is for them to make sure that their customs broker is taking full advantage of the Free Trade Agreements [FTA’s] and Tariff Concessions which are made available by the Government to reduce the duty rates to 0%.”
Platinum® Freight have saved their customers thousands on overseas imports with their knowledge of Free Trade Agreements and Tariff Concessions. Call Peter today on 1300 882 877 and see how your business can benefit.