To quote J’s sister, Isn’t the government supposed to have your back? But we all know that is not always rarely the case.
Based on the many, many anecdotes I’ve heard from friends and strangers, the Bureau of Customs needs to be cleaned. We all have an idea of how awfully brutal this department is in collecting arbitrary amounts from citizens receiving gifts and goods from abroad.
Here’s my story: Threadless shirts went on sale for $9.99 each, so I bought three shirts for J and I and paid via PayPal. So that’s 29.97 plus 9 dollars for the shipping charge. I was warned by a friend not to exceed 50 dollars to avoid being taxed by Customs.
You see, Customs is so dirty that citizens dread having their goods pass through it.
The shirts were shipped via DHL, and landed in the Customs office of the Parañaque PO (J lives in Pqe). Listen: I receive books from the US, which often end up in the Makati PO Customs office. I pay a parcel fee of 40 pesos, which I still don’t get. Why can’t my packages just reach me directly instead of going through Customs? Why do I need to pay a parcel fee? I already paid for shipping, why do I need to pay an additional fee once the damn thing enters the Philippines? Why?
So we received a similar notification from Pqe PO that we have a package (yay!) and we need to pick it up there and pay 40 pesos (boo).
I have work so I can’t go there personally, so we asked J’s driver, Kuya B, to pick it up for us.
So he paid the parcel fee.
And then Customs, in its infinite glory, asked for more than 900 pesos in fees. Keep in mind that the shirts cost less than 1,300 in total. Customs is asking us to pay more than half of the total price of the goods we already paid to be shipped to us.
Here’s their breakdown, signed by Collecting Officer Genesia B. Osil:
Calculation for Customs Duty:
Declared/Assessed Value (29.97) x Exchange Rate = Dutiable Value (PhP1,268) x Rate of Duty (15%) = PhP190
Calculation for Expanded Value Added Tax:
Dutiable Value (PhP 1268) + Customs Duty (PhP 190) + Fixed Customs Documentary Stamp (PhP 250) + Import Processing Fee (PhP 250) + BIR Stamps (PhP 15) = EVAT Base (PhP 1973) x EVAT Rate (12%) = PhP237
ALL TOGETHER NOW:
PhP 190 + 237 + Fixed Customs Documentary Stamp (PhP 250) + Import Processing Fee (PhP 250) + BIR Stamps (PhP 15) = PhP 942 + Parcel Fee (40) = PhP 982
Almost a thousand pesos of fees and taxes for a package in a plastic bag that costs less than 1,300 pesos. You see how fucked up this is.
Because of the outrageous calculation, Kuya B spoke with the Customs guy. He haggled. Can you imagine – the fees are so arbitrary that Customs allowed haggling!
The Customs guy said, O sige, 500 na lang. Pero wala nang resibo.
500 na lang daw! Wow. MARAMING SALAMAT. Ang bait mo naman.
To end the conversation and to finally have the package released, Kuya B paid a total of PhP 540. Where did that money go? Did the guy just put that in his pocket?
You might say, You should be glad they asked for only 540 instead of the actual 982 written on the receipt. I’d say, No. Because are you kidding me?!
You might say, You shouldn’t have haggled. I’d say, But Kuya B was just asked to run this errand, and he wanted to get this package. I don’t blame him. I blame Customs.
You might say, If going through Customs is such a hassle, then just avoid receiving packages from abroad. I’d say, Really? That’s your solution?
If I had gone there myself, this Customs dude, and the entire PO, would have gotten an earful. But I didn’t. So we end up with this tale.
Government, I pay my taxes! A LOT OF TAXES! DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE BUREAU OF CUSTOMS!
The End.
And I will close this post with a smile and a Threadless shirt:
Do you have your own Customs horror story? Leave a comment.
UPDATE: Kind friends sent this post’s URL to Ruffy Biazon, Customs Commissioner, via Twitter. He replied. Read from the bottom up.
The Customs Commissioner himself sees no anomaly here, save for the haggling. So this is normal. So that’s that.
Here’s an FAQ on duty/tax imposed on articles.
Tax computation reference. (IPF is the same for all items up to P250,000.)
Tariff rates from the Tariff Commission.
UPDATE 2. Welp, got this message from a friend, which I RT’d.
Same item, same brand, different PO, different fees. And this is not arbitrary, Mr. Biazon? And this is okay?
Enough said. Move on na akech!
Similarly, we were taxed Php 4,000 for Threadless shirts about six years ago. And yeah, we did have to haggle.
P4k??? That’s horrible.
Yeah, I know! We bought a lot of shirts, though. Kasi nga sale! Haha parang namili lang kami ng original price ang nangyari e.
Haha ganun na nga.
I had to pay a fee similar to yours, too, when I picked up my threadless package last year. It was for 3 shirts that I got from their sale too. Natrauma na ako after nun. Never again. Then I made the mistake of asking for a catalog from SVA, which should’ve been delivered to my house for free BUT somehow hinold pa rin sa PO by customs and I was charged P150 for it (fee daw for ”holding it” doon). Putangina talaga ng customs, or maybe our local PO hates me? Sa ibang post offices di naman ganito. :(
I posted about it but since I took my tumblr page down, I don\’t have it online anymore. Maybe I\’ll repost it soon and come back here.
PS: I just realized you\’re in Pque too.
And it appears that Mr. Biazon think there’s no anomaly here. Hay.
Are your orders from the US? I usually have mine shipped via Johnny Air because it no longer passes through customs. At times, it is a bit more expensive (because they ship by the pound, with a minimum of 800-something pesos for items 1 pound or below) but I always get my things a week or two after purchase and they consolidate packages when you give them a heads-up. I’ve had purchases of well over a hundred dollars and they were delivered without any problems.
Personally I can’t deal with the crap Customs has to put people through. I’ve heard stories from friends whose purchases never got to them because it was ‘lost’.
Yep Threadless ships from the US. Might consider Johnny Air in the future.
My personal story years ago.
http://www.nargalzius.com/blog/archives/2007/04/27/alphatrack
I’ve since then just coursed stuff through Johnny Air (if I can’t find anyone to bring it home first). They tell you upfront if there are any special handling fees (i.e. extra x amount for electronics, etc.) So you don’t get blindsided once it hits philippine shores.
You arrange with them, they send the item (you can pre-pay or do a COD, either way there are no surprise fees) then you pick it up at their office (or any of their pickup points in the malls)
Thanks for sharing. So you haggled as well. Parang palengke lang ang Customs. Nakakainis/nakakahiya.
the first time i came home from the US…. may dala akong mga DVDs… the customs person at the airport wanted to charge me $500 for 3 original DVDs… Nagpalusot na lang ako at sinabi ko film student ako… the dvds for my research. I was lucky not to get charged. However, I know that more people were not so lucky.
500 dollars! Mahal naman. :(
ay sorry… pesos lang yan… lol… nacoconfuse nako sa currencies ko :p
Haha! Pero kahit na. Buti hindi ka nagbayad.
It’s just baffling that they charged you for a $30 order. When I ordered hair dye that amounted to $80, I was told I had to pay fees. Admittedly, I expected this but I was still annoyed so I asked them why (because I wanted to hear it straight from a post office employee, and not from blog entries lol). They said it was because my order went over $50. I told them that was the first time I’ve ever been charged and mentioned that I had claimed a package from the Pasig Post Office a while back that amounted to $60something (shipping included; the guy opened it, asked what it was for, and then gave the go-signal that it was fine). They then said that it was because some sellers don’t declare the real value (one of them brought out a package from Romwe that had a declared value of $10 and said “Wala namang galing sa Romwe na ganyan kamura, chinecheck namin sa internet” lol).
It’s just so inconsistent, cos we’re all under the impression that orders below $50 won’t be taxed. Tapos alam mo na mali because they offered to haggle (QC Post didn’t).
Ayun nga e. Pero wala na tayong laban kasi sabi nga ni Commissioner wala namang anomalya. Haha! Only in the Philippines!
Hi Eliza! Duty tax is also pretty expensive over here when you have something sent from abroad. But you’re right, books shouldn’t be taxed. There should be no tax either if the cost of a product doesn’t exceed a certain amount. The extra you had paid for, and especially the haggling – was unacceptable. And really sad how you know it’s all corruption and power-tripping. Kung ayaw mong magbayad, hindi mo makukuha goods mo.
My story as a sender to the Philippines: I had two small parcels sent through regular post that my family never received (one mailed from Finland and one from England, nothing expensive, just souvenirs). So my solution was to send via registered mail, but Royal Mail couldn’t track them anymore as soon as they reach Philippine soil. Pricey but it always worked. I haven’t sent anything through regular post since early last year when I noticed that my family never received even the small things anymore, such as Christmas cards or a thick envelope full of photographs. I don’t know why – maybe Customs thought I put money in them??? It would be silly to use registered mail in sending a little Christmas card!
I do know that Customs in RP is pretty bad, but in my case I don’t know whether the post reached San Fernando in Pampanga and were not just delivered to my hometown. I don’t know how it works with other couriers but to be honest, I’ve always been hesitant to send stuff to the Philippines. I felt safe mailing boxes to myself (!) whilst studying in Europe (that is, the boxes arrive safely at my new residence before I move in). But in all my seven years here, I haven’t sent a balikbayan box to my family. People I know seem to have good stories about balikbayan boxes, but personally, I’m worried about the extra fees. I would rather give my family the money, and on top of that, the one that would be spent on shipping and Customs.
“Duty tax is also pretty expensive over here when you have something sent from abroad” sounds redundant, I meant, sent from outside the EU :)
Sad too that the BOC commish saw this post and said there’s no anomaly except for the haggling. We were asked to pay more than half the actual price of the goods! And that’s okay???
I give up. Next time I buy stuff from abroad, I’ll make sure there’s someone in the vicinity (a relative or a friend) who can take it home with them. That’s how J got a copy of NAME OF THE WIND. Hehe.
just be patient..sooner or later, their time will come.
I also ordered threadless shirts before and didn’t have to pay tax. THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS! And to think I was thinking of buying again. WTF CUSTOMS
Thanks for the comment. This is outrageous indeed.
Or (sorry naman ang obsessive ko) pero going by the Customs website tax calculator, if we consider the Fixed Charges as Other Charges under Dutiable Value, then they should only be computed under the Customs Duty. redundant na kung ipapasok pa uli siya under the VAT calculation. at redundundundundant pa lalo kung i-add uli siya sa basic/summary formula.
basta may naaamoy akong redundancy sa calculation according to the receipt. mukhang iba siya sa formula sa website. ‘di lang ako marunong mag-Math :))
Same thing happens sa amin, we ordered shirts and other threadless items for the GC we won. More or less the total price was $500. And the guy on the philpost told us that we have to pay around 10,000 for the ‘tax and sumthing sumthing’ to claim the items, 10k?!! wtf?!! Kaya ngaun mega research what remedy could we do. Urgh!
That is horrible. Did they show you the breakdown?