Korean Job Discussion Forums

[createasaurus21]

If I were to order something on amazon.com with an invoice price of $1,000, would I have to pay import tax?

If I were to ship a 20' shipping container of various American packaged food products, spices, kitchen appliances, furniture, bottled beers, etc. what taxes would apply?

If I were to ship a new or used car from the U.S., how would I be taxed?

I sent an email to the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea asking these and other questions. Until I get a response, I thought I'd come here to pick the brilliant brains of Dave's ESL Cafe.

I actually have some light trade experience from being a part-time buyer on and off for 15 years, but I have only dealt with importing from China to the U.S., in which case we practically paid zero tax.

[Aine1979]

I used this website to work out taxes when I'm ordering online, it's been spot on every time, you might get some of your answers there

http://www.dutycalculator.com/new-import-duty-and-tax-calculation/

[createasaurus21]

I forgot to mention, the food products, spices, beers would be distributed to retailers, restaurants, bars, and would also be used at my own business.

The furniture and automobile, for personal and business use.

[createasaurus21]

[Drew10]

I wouldn't worry so much about the import duties, but rather the licenses (assuming you have an F visa) for the various items you wish to import. Only because you stated you wish to sell to distributors.

Not too long ago I checked into importing beer from the U.S myself, you'll need to register as a business, and hope the beer (or any item) you wish to import doesn't already have an importer. Then you'll need a deposit (last I checked it equaled to around 50,000 USD) and a warehouse of X amount of sq footage.

After that part is figured out, then you can worry about taxes and duties.

*edit*

You don't specifically need an F visa in order to legally import as a business, you can get it done on a D8 investors visa or a D9 trading visa. To get a D8 you'd need 100,000 USD, I'm not sure about the D9.

[createasaurus21]

The licensing costs you mentioned don't seem too bad, although I'll have to do more research.

The good thing for anyone thinking of distributing beer here, is that there are still hundreds, if not, thousands of American (and other) craft brews that aren't available in Korea. I would not look into beers that are already here of course.

I'm not very serious about the idea of distributing beer, as you can see ... just playing with the idea of having a sideline to another project and comparing import costs vs. sourcing locally.

[Drew10]

I'm all for new beers coming over here but the logistics have to be right.

I deal with a beer importer on occasion, while he does have some good beers, he's pricing himself out of business simply because his is the only company allowed to import the specific set of beers his company carries. I contacted the brewery directly add inquired about costs and was basically told I'm wasting my time with them.

Which brings me to another point of discussion...

Do the breweries of the regional craft beers have the capacity to produce enough to keep your distributors in supply? If you work with the right distributors you could find customers all over the peninsula, but you (or a representative) would have to visit bars/pubs/etc personally to conduct sales, as the distributors don't really do that kind of thing here.


I'm not in any way trying to dissuade anyone from importing beer, just trying to share my experiences in dealing with a similar situation. I have no clue what licenses you'd need or what fees are involved with importing any of the other items you mentioned.

[alongway]

[RiceIsNice]

The duties required under an FTA can be easily calculated using US Trade's Tarrif Tool.

See link: http://export.gov/fta/ftatarifftool/TariffSearch.aspx

Simply indicate import or export, the country you are doing business with, and the HS number of the item you are trading. If you don't know the HS Code for your merchandise, HS codes can be found in a separate search engine linked to on that page.

It's accurate and official. I don't trust any other sources.

[Weigookin74]

[jdog2050]

[No_hite_pls]

I would love to be able to import my car from North America to Korea.