Should the custom form show the order's retail price or the price that was actually paid?
Asked 5 years ago
When we have a sale or give customers a discount, the retail price and the price that was actually paid are different. Not sure which price we should write down in the customs form when shipping packages abroad.
Martin Sandoval
Saturday, March 23, 2019
The custom form should be filled out based on what the customer paid. Customs care about actual money paid and not retail value. It’s the same thing as sales tax. You only pay tax on the price you paid. If you give 30% discount and sell a product, you’ll be taxed for the price paid. The same thing goes with customs value declarations. If we were talking about insurance, that would be a different story. The actual retail value would apply.
Clyde Frye
Saturday, March 23, 2019
The customs form has to show the value of the product, not the amount paid. As far as I know, that’s the law. Taxes are applied based on the value of an item - not the price you paid. That’s what Amazon do when they ship a product abroad, they put the actual price of the product and not the amount paid. When you get a 50% discount on an item that costs $100, and you pay $50, this does not decrease the value of the item, it decreases the price you paid. Customs couldn’t asses the value of products if it was determined by the price paid. Also, that would open the door for a lot of fraud. It seems like many ecomm sellers make this mistake and mark the price paid, and maybe customs aren’t aware of it or don’t really enforce this law, but I still think this is how it should be done if you wanna be on the safe side because not reporting the right price is an offense.
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