For individuals and organizations that plan on importing goods into certain countries, knowing what GST and customs duty entails is highly essential.

Some people regard learning about what GST is irrelevant because it isn’t a policy applied tenaciously in every country. However, enough nations all around the world use it for it to merit careful consideration.

Oftentimes, possessing a keen knowledge and understanding of GST and customs duty is all that determines how quickly your cargo is cleared through customs. If you are wondering how that can be so, keep in mind that from the moment you know exactly what would be demanded of you, you are able to fully equip yourself and prepare all that would be helpful to you in clearing your goods.

GST and Customs Duty

Short for goods and services tax, the act of collecting this levy started back in France at around 1954. Since that time, the practice of levying this tax on goods coming into a country has slowly but surely spread all over the world.

Today, some popular countries you can expect to pay customs duty and GST in when you import your goods in there include:

The United Kingdom

Australia

Canada

Vietnam

Monaco

Spain

Nigeria

Brazil

Korea

India

Outside these countries, more than 150 other nations of the world also collect GST and customs duty in one form or the other on imported goods.

How to Understand Customs Duty and GST

Basically, it is a form of indirect federal sales tax that is charged on some specific goods and services which would be consumed within its borders domestically.

When the customs duty and GST tax is levied on a particular product, the seller includes that sum in the price of the product. As such, any consumer who buys this product by extension pays a portion of the GST.

Due to this, it is called a Value-Added Tax in certain countries that employ its use.

Custom Duty GST Calculator

As you may probably already know, not all goods which are imported into the country are subject to payment of the goods and services tax. With certain goods, you won’t need to take up your custom duty GST calculator or even put in a request for the Australian customs GST refund.

The reason for this is these goods in question are actually exempted from paying the levy. Some the goods not required to pay this tax include but aren’t limited to;

• Petroleum and any products of petroleum ranging from substances like diesel and petrol fluids to even aviation turbine fuels.
• Also, importers of alcohol are not currently subjected to paying the goods and services tax.

However, it is important to point out that this is a policy and as such is liable to change.

Keep in mind that customs duty and GST is unique to each country. This is one reason why many countries have their own custom duty GST calculator.

More than this, many customs adopt different policies with its use, which is why there’s something like the Australian customs GST refund which isn’t featured in many other countries.

Through doing things like using a country’s custom duty GST calculator and understanding practices such as the Australian customs GST refund, you are better able to get a better idea of what it is you’re dealing with.

Goods and services tax is host-based. This means that once you are able to understand how the country you’re importing to operates, you won’t encounter any issues.