Why is duty payable on overseas gifts?
IT is with great interest I have been reading about parcels from overseas and the charges we have to pay.
Our daughter in the UK sent a parcel of presents out to us here. They were labelled as gifts and it was clearly stated what was in the parcels. After waiting for the parcel to arrive we were eventually phoned at 12.30pm on Christmas Eve to be told that the parcel had arrived in PE but that it would cost us R1 346 to get it. The cost of the presents was about R2 600 but in order not to disappoint our granddaughters here we paid it.
Surely it not too much to ask of SARS that if the parcels are clearly presents then they need not charge. As has been said there is no charge in the UK no matter what presents are sent.
D N Burton Walmer Heights, PE
Customs officials must answer questions about costs
YET again there was a letter in Friday‘s Herald from somebody being charged to receive an incoming parcel of gifts from overseas family (“Why are we penalised for receiving parcels from overseas?”). There have been a spate of letters recently from readers being charged exorbitant amounts to receive parcels.
Isn‘t it about time the post office or customs office actually answered some of these questions as to why we are the only country where we are being ripped off to receive parcels?
Jan Hopkins, Sherwood, Port Elizabeth
DH HERMAN of Summerstrand, writing about her experience with the customs and excise duty on her daughter‘s parcel from Australia, has obviously not been following the letters about just this problem that have appeared in the past couple of months in this paper. The thing to do in this case is to go to the postmaster and request a form to send the parcel back to customs and excise for “re-evaluation”.
You then go home and write to Andreas Koutoulogenis at akoutoulogenis@sars.gov.za and request him to look into the matter. This will probably require a couple of reminder e-mails, but you will after a month or two get your parcel back re-assessed.
Our little parcel from our daughter in Australia arrived on January 25 with a fee of R269, was sent back to customs and I wrote to Koutoulogenis (he does reply). After my couple of reminders we finally got it back on March 27 and “only” had to pay R25!
May I suggest to every person out there who ever receives a parcel from overseas that they write down the details of the customs and excise contact and file it carefully for future use? Maybe if they are inundated with these requests they will stop this ridiculous practice.
The address: Andreas Koutoulogenis, ORTIA - JIMC, Customs &0x0026; Excise, tel 011-3901962, e-mail: akoutoulogenis@sars.gov.za
Good luck.
Lyn Dickason, Theescombe, Port Elizabeth
