Importing personal possessions to the Philippines?

[MarcusD]

I am moving out to the Philippines in Dec and staying on a one year tourist extension visa initially then getting married and staying permanently in 2009. I am going to be importing my personal possessions in January 2008 whilst on my tourist visa.

I checked the customs rules and it states I have to file a re-export bond or pay applicable duties and taxes within 6 months - only permanent residents can get their stuff in tax free?

Is this right? How can I avoid this? I thought about putting the shipping consignment in my partners name, (not married yet!) and pretending they were her's to avoid any tax issues but can this be done?

Any help on avoiding having to pay tax on my own goods on a tourist visa would be very much appreciated!!! :)

[JAMZ]

I might not be the best person-to-go-to here but isn't it that you might not be paying taxes in the Philippines but you will be when it arrives and get delivered in the UK?

Because everytime my friend's parents send him a shipment, they do not really pay taxes from Manila, istead it's my friend who pays for it when he receives it because they tell him that duties and taxes are only determined to the receiving country... I do not know if this sounds relevant to ur query...

[MarcusD]

Hi, thanks for replying but actually I am taking my personal possessions to Ortigas out of the UK so my receiving country is the Philippines. Stuff like my tv, cd player, cd's and DVD's and clothes.

Anyone advise me on how to get a re-export bond, costs etc.? And what is the import tax cost amount to or prevailing rate? I hope it is not expensive!

[JAMZ]

Ah, I see...I missed it...

You know what, like now, we were able to avoid taxes even sending those kind of stuffs because we availed of the Balikbayan Box that we only paid for 50 quid with no maximum weight and we were able to send to the Philippines the TV and other massive things we had here like the players and others. Although, it will reach the Philippines two months after because it is through a cargo ship.

I do not know if there is still second batch of balikbayan boxes that you can avail as of todate. Usually they are now on the collecting phase already.

Another experience I had was when I shipped a box before to Makati and declared a certain value of the whole package (regarless of whether the contents are used or new) to be just about £100 (but I already understated the value into more than 50%) and yet they charged the recipient about 5% of the total declared value as the custom tax.

[Gie]

Hmmm why not just sell all your stuff here and buy a new one in the Philippines? :)

[fred]

Hi Marcus..
Sorry..I still haven't replied to your second email..Ive been very busy of late..Ill speak to you soon..
We sold all our stuff in the UK as transportation costs were too high to justify sending them.
We did however pack 3 large balikbayan boxes via Bellwood UK http://www.belwoodukshipping.co.uk/menu.php?page=box_info&section=charges
I put my PC and surround system in one of the boxes and they arrived in good order..Im not sure if I would put a TV in as it could get damaged .
There is a very good chance that it wont work here anyway as the PAL system is incompatible with local system.
The boxes are a door to door service and the company deal with customs etc..
I believe that you can buy insurance for the box contents direct from Bellwood if you so wish..
The only downside is that the boxes can take up to 2 months to arrive.:cwm34:

[MarcusD]

Hi Fred

No worries on the email - will catch up with you eventually :)

Thanks for the replies - some interesting ones and yes I thought about selling it all but the cost of replacing with similar quality minus how much I would get on the market for used goods etc.. makes it a bit complicated when I have only 10 weeks left. My tv is a flat screen tv bought in July on a good deal so it might shift quick for a good price but what worries me is my priceless 800 CD and DVD collection which cannot be replaced.

Would it not be easier to just ship it and get a re-export bond?

Pickfords' quoted me £1500.00 including insurance door to door service including packing for everything which I thought was excellent. I don't mind paying up to £500 for import duty so long as they arrived in one condition.

Selling might be the easiest option if I had 3 - 4 months, with 10 weeks if I don't sell everything and get my CD's and DVD's over safely it might not be worth the risk.

Help!!! LOL

[PeterB]

Compared with the shipping costs, the duty is not terribly significant. I brought two largish crates by air (total of 2 cubic metres), plus a 20 foot sea container. Shipping costs were a little over £3000, the duty charged is about a tenth of that.