AUSTFA form help

[Grilledcheese]

Hi everyone,

I posted recently about helping my friend’s partner pick a lab diamond from James Allen.

He’s just purchased the ring! Wohoo!!

The only issue is that both JA and Fedex say that they cannot provide the form... Now JA is saying that he should send them the paperwork to fill out?? We have no idea where to get this.

We would love to hear from anyone who knows about the AUSTFA agreement, especially any Australians that have purchased online before.

Thank you

 

[Bron357]

Ok. The free trade agreement between US and Australia reduces the normal 15% import tax (being GST and 5% import) down to 10%. It is for items manufactured in the US. Is it a ring? Because as far as I know the lab diamonds are manufactured in England so, while yes, the ring setting is manufactured in the US I’m not sure if James Allen can declare the gem as “US made”.
FedEx will not do the export “form”, James Allen has to complete that. If they can’t or won’t at worst, you will just have to pay 15% to import. Then with supporting documentation from James Allen apply to Customs for a refund of the 5%. Be warned, while it takes 3 seconds to charge you, refunds take months.
How import works is Fed ex Aust will call you and advise how much you need to pay for release. Fed ex charges a fee to do the processing btw. You can pay over the phone and give a Credit card details. The parcel is then delivered within 2 days. Then a week to 10 days later you’ll get a hard copy of the import documents from Fed ex in the ordinary mail. You need these plus the James Allen invoice/ receipt to make a customs refund claim.
You can’t get away from the 10% GST (it’s now applied to ALL transactions, not just over $1,000) plus the fee for customs processing ($100 or so).

 

[Grilledcheese]

Ok. The free trade agreement between US and Australia reduces the normal 15% import tax (being GST and 5% import) down to 10%. It is for items manufactured in the US. Is it a ring? Because as far as I know the lab diamonds are manufactured in England so, while yes, the ring setting is manufactured in the US I’m not sure if James Allen can declare the gem as “US made”.
FedEx will not do the export “form”, James Allen has to complete that. If they can’t or won’t at worst, you will just have to pay 15% to import. Then with supporting documentation from James Allen apply to Customs for a refund of the 5%. Be warned, while it takes 3 seconds to charge you, refunds take months.
How import works is Fed ex Aust will call you and advise how much you need to pay for release. Fed ex charges a fee to do the processing btw. You can pay over the phone and give a Credit card details. The parcel is then delivered within 2 days. Then a week to 10 days later you’ll get a hard copy of the import documents from Fed ex in the ordinary mail. You need these plus the James Allen invoice/ receipt to make a customs refund claim.
You can’t get away from the 10% GST (it’s now applied to ALL transactions, not just over $1,000) plus the fee for customs processing ($100 or so).

Thank you so much! That makes sense, especially about the diamonds being manufactured in the UK. I wish they would have just told us that, as we’ve been super confused on why both Fedex and JA said they couldn’t send the paperwork...