Import taxes imposed
By great.angelina •
Dear Qlers,
It's been 3 years that i ship photography items to doha from the USA, and through those 3 years i've had all kinds of bills most of them above the 3600 QR mark.. NEVER had i paid customs for them, so i thought wow this is thr free market!!
Today i got a shipment (canon lens) it costs 1280$ on papers and they charged a 300 QR customs fees for it..
I have to pay UPS to get my lens, so much for free imports, well c'est la vie.....
@nijel, thank u for the input, i will try to do that... who knows maybe they'll refund me and maybe not, no idea but ups should've told me especially that they didn't ship it to the office they just waited for me to go get or else wait till next day afternoon delivery :S didn't like that so i went and picked it up and still no mention of the id thing...even though they took a copy of the id
Just to add to my previous post....last year I had imported a Sony Vaio Laptop worth around QAR.4500 from USA and I did not pay any taxes as I told them it is for my own use.
It had also happened to me before just because DHL delivered the books that I had ordered, to my office address. You can call them and tell them that the stuff you bought is for your personal use and it is in your name and by providing your Qatari Id copy, you can be exempt from the taxes.
@ sherukan;
How many times have u shipped items worth 2000-2500$ in order to know that it's not new that they impost tax?
I shipped 6 times between lenses/ video camera/canon professional camera/ flashes.. just to name a few, always ended up with a HUGE bill and Never with any customs or legalistation fees, it is new and no where have i seen it mentioned around the news, and i do read arabic too so also no where mentioned in arabic..
I received a package today too and had to pay what is now called a legalisation fee. The government is charging it on all imports from any price. My package was only worth 500QR and I had to pay 231QR on it. It says on the DHL website that it is for commercial customers, but you know how Qatar is, they are charging everyone no matter what.
Yes, It is not something new, you should pay tax on items which are being imported if the value of the item is above Qr. 3000. Normally it is 5% but there is minimum.
What i forgot to mention is that they said that anything above 3000 QR will have to pay a tax...