Import Duties

Apothicus is a Canadian import agent. He may be able to help.

I have no idea what the tariff will be to import but you may have a different problem. You do realize that the USA uses a 60 Hz power grid and not a 50Hz power grid. Your synchronous motor will now run at 1.2 rpm on the USA grid.

Yes that is not a problem tho. because the item the motor will be going into will end up in a location that uses that type of power.

But Thank You for thinking ahead.

Joe

Sure I can tell you duty rates but I will need some info as it relates to the tariff.

First just to be sure this is an electric motor, not a pneumatic or hydraulic motor?

Can you tell me AC or DC and the power output in HP or Watts?

220 volt AC 50 Cycle, 1 Rpm, 3 watts

small timing motor. Like you would find in a clock.

So these being more than 4 bucks I'll end up being in the 4.4% rate.

What does all this mean?

Free (A,AU,B,BH,
CA,CL,E,IL,J,JO,
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THANK YOU<

If they ship this to me Via Fed EX, where, when, how, and who do I usually pay for this?

Does it make a difference if I am a business or not?

Now

Now for my education .......what does synchronous mean?

These motors get their accuracy from the frequency of the power supplied to it. IE in this case 50Hz. They are locked in at the sped they are designed to spin at.

Unlike a regular motor, when running with no load on it say may be spinning at 1000 RPM, and then when you add a load on it to work against it slows down some.

These synchronous motors under no load or even full load still will be running at the same exact speed.

It will stay at this same speed till you finally overload it where it either strips the gears or stalls the motor.

Thanks for the help here.

Joe

Any Horror stories about DHL?

They are only a few bucks higher in shipping costs. so how of a reputation do they have?

They would be a better bet I think. Get them to quote you on the brokerage charge before you ship it, if it is too high you could probably clear it yourself with the tariff I supplied. Have DHL give you the "advice notice" when it arrives and take that to the customs office. In Canada an officer will help you fill out the form.

Wow, I'm sorry this is soo far over my head. I just a old dude that is disabled that wants to make a few extra bucks and maybe would be buying 25 or so of these a year.

There just has to be an easier way. And the government wonders why more people don't do businesses.

Sorry.

Call a broker. We do small clearances for some clients at less than $20.00. Not sure if US brokers work that cheap. They will notify the carrier (DHL) that they are your broker so that the carrier notifies them upon arrival. Have your shipper send it freight prepaid. Broker will clear upon arrival and send you a bill, DHL will deliver to your door.

Oh it is all sent pre paid, the motors themselves as well as the shipping. Will be all paid before it leaves England.

The only extra cost will be the duites and "Broker Fee"?

Ok cool then do a bit of shopping. Call a couple of customs brokers from a phone book and explain the situation. Be sure to tell them you will provide the tariff information, this will often lower the price as they now only have to push a couple of buttons on a keybord now. No brain work involved. If it is the same down there as it is up here they will be hungry for work and be able to do the work at a fair price.

Does the gearmotor manufacturer not have a distributor in the US? It might cost a little more, but would make life a lot easier.

That was my first question, and sadly No,

I recently returned an instrument to England for repair that I paid $650.00 for 10 years ago. When asked by FedEx what the value of the item was, I filled in $650.00. FedEx charged me $95.00 to ship the item to England. The Brits charged me $80.00 to repair it and $40.00 to ship it back. Subsequently, FedEx charged my account an additional $133.00 which they said was the British tariff for importing the instrument into England. I explained that it was only being sent back for repair and they now claim they are pleading my case, but after 3 months, I have no resolution.

Goods returning to the country of origin do not attract duty IF someone can prove they were originally exported. The moto being keep all paperwork forever .

If that avenue fails then I know Canada has a system where many goods can imported "temporarily" and thus avoid paying any duty or tax. I don't know if England has a similar plan but I suspect they do.

Did everyone involved know that your shipment contained British goods returning for repairs? Or like many shippers you expected the customs broker to divine this information from their crystal ball. We all have one because we never get all the information we require from the importer/exporter.

These exceptional measures are not normally used on such a low value shipment but they do exist. Again using a customs broker to clear your goods instead of a courrier might have helped.

Upon return of the goods to you, you should have had to pay duties and taxes, but only on the cost of repairs ($80.00). The rest of the value of the goods had already been accounted for on the first importation.

Apothicus, A variation on the same topic. If nss's motor happened to be part of a device, say a turntable or plastic fan which did not attract any duty, would the motor still be rated separately for duty or would it also enter free. I appreciate the overall device may itself be of higher cost value but wondering how the duty is treated. (Although a 1 cent fan blade making it a fan may work if fan duty is zero)

Bob

An often asked question but the feds are way ahead of you. There are 3 very specific rules about what is considered a part.

1. The item must be absolutely necessary for the main device to function.
2. The item must be specifically made for the main device.
3. The item cannot be classified in its own heading of the tariff.

It is rule three that throws motors out of the parts provision of the tariff because motors have their own heading (8501). A heading is the first four digits of a tariff. So things like motors, pumps, valves, bearings and many many other items are never considered parts of anything. This is also something that makes my job difficult because when a client orders a new motor for his widget making machine he usually knows nothing about the motor beyond it making his widget machine run. Or often an invoice may only have a part number and when questioned the importer says it is part of my widget machine. But if Customs opens the box they find a motor? BUSTED! That is why when I phone a client I prefer to speak to the person who will be installing the "part" not the CEO or the receptionist.

One of my favorite stories is talking to a suit who had the pump in front of him and still couldn't tell me if it was reciprocating or rotary. I asked him to plug it in and tell me if it went thump thump or whirrrrrrrrrr.

Customs must be a weird world if bearings are not considered as parts of something else. (I don't know of very many stand-alone bearings.)

But then, maybe customs is a long-lost circle that Dante forgot to mention, whose patron saint is Franz Kafka, and in which you now discover yourself....

If they called them "thrust bearing annuli" rather than "thrust washers", would that be a more, or less, duty classification?

(I am not trying to attack/satirize you in this; rather, I am trying to poke the "system.")

Definately, if they used the word bearing in the name it would clue us brokers to ask questions like "Is it radial or thrust and ball, roller or plain?" As it is most people think it is a washer and ask "What is it made of and is it a lock or flat washer?"

As far as duty goes, all bearings are duty free and most washers are too. Duty rates have been going down worldwide for many years now due to the globalization trend and free market concept. The government still wants to know exactly what is coming in though, so there is a system of fines and penalties for misclassifying imports. That is what worries us these days.

and to add to the mix, if I brought in a motor shaft/rotor, then brought in the stator (the other half) separately, would Customs put them together and call them a motor ?

Not if you imported those parts in two different shipments. But if they were imported together then yes, it is one motor. We apply what we call the "Ikea" rule. (Some assembly required). Officially it is General Interprative Rule 2(a). There are 6 of these rules that govern the use of the tariff. This is something amateurs don't realize about the tariff. IT IS NOT A DICTIONARY and cannot be used as such. Anyone who claims they have a website or automatic tool where you enter a product name and it will return a tariff .....lies. But that is another story about the software I built that works versus the software being used out there that doesn't. People keep trying to hire me to "tweek" their word search programs. The last attempt had a person tell me that they had a great program, customers loved it, it was cheap to use, the interface was fantastic, the only problem was that it constantly returned the wrong answer. Could I fix that last little detail for them?

If this is not a good answer, I cannot imagine what is. You get my vote.

Ditto!

, thanks guys, its nice to be able to pay back for some of the help I've received here.