[nickydwuk]

We have the first of 3 shipping companies round - still waiting for the estimate- and they mentioned that our wine rack (all 12 bottles of cheap plonk) would attract duty if we shipped it over in our container. Has anyone got any idea how much duty we would have to pay? :cheers

[Mels]

We're just going to drink ours first - hic :D

Reckon it'll help us get through the last few weeks. :cheers

Mels

[catt]

We are going to drink ours to Mel..........need to so that the limbo goes wobbly........:raebanana

[Mels]

Do we have any 'drunk bananas' we can add to posts? :D


Mels

[nickydwuk]

We did think of drinking it all but OH thought it would be nice to open up the container and celebrate with a bottle or two of our favourite wine. I'm all for drinking it first :cheers

[StevieD]

Thought this thread said "Alcohol on Duty" ooooops :laugh

Not heard of anybody getting bothered for it, just put it in boxes labelled general foodstuffs, loads of people do it I believe ;)

[mgbridges]

We had quite a substantial wine collection that we wanted to bring with us, no way we could have/wanted to drink it all before we left. We provided our shippers with a complete breakdown of what we were shipping - label, when we purchased it and approx. value. This was what our duty costs were based on. We had to go into the Customs office in central Auckland and pay it in person (well thats what our shippers told us so thats what OH did).

Just looked up our NZ Customs Service receipt its broken down as follows:
GST $118
Import Transaction Fee $19.56
GST on Import Transaction Fee $2.44
MAF Bio-Security Levy $3.00
GST on MAF Bio-Security Levy $0.38
Total $143.38

NB: this includes GST on a brand new washing machine that we brought with us and declared.

If its only a few bottles you could get away with just putting it in a box and not labelling it but you run the risk of getting penalised if you don't declare it and its found during your Customs/MAF inspection. Still I'm quite sure there are plenty of people who do this and get away with it so its your decision.

Anneliese

[barryp]

Your 12 bottles of wine are not dutiable, as they are part of your personal goods. (So long as you have PR - the rules are different if you don't.) Note that mgbridges did not pay any duty on their wine collection, nor did we on our hundreds of bottles. Customs don't care about personal collections, though they would care a great deal if you tried bringing over hundreds of identical bottles and claimed they were 'just for personal use' as opposed to resale.

Movers lie about alcohol restrictions because their insurance carriers don't like the idea of covering consequential damages from bottles that leak or break during shipment. Especially bottles of red wine.

Your only concern should be making sure the bottles are packed securely so (a) they don't damage anything else in your container (b) the wine is not ruined from exposure to heat in transit.

The weather is crap today so I think I'll pull another bottle from the collection now....

[nickydwuk]

As barryp says it is only 12 bottles. I have looked on the customs site and it seems for volumes up to 750ml the most would be about $5 so we will take them and see.

[Scotty69]

I would drink the cheap plonk and when im out their buy a nice bottle or two of expensive plonk to celebrate with.

:cheers:cheers

Natasha