ODK to USA

[jabberwock48]

Hi

I wonder if anybody has any knowledge of sending equipment for use in the USA. I have an Orion Optics UK 14in ODK on order which I was intending to house in my observatory in Cornwall. I have now got involved with a group with a scope hosted at Sierra Remote Observatory in California, with the intention of moving to their own RoR observatory at a really dark site in New Mexico. The ODK get much better use over there with clear skies and good seeing. And it would be very welcome to the rest of the group who contribute various bits of equipment and share resulting subs via Google Drive.

I have established that if I have Orion send the ODK direct to the US Import Duty and Sales Tax comes to much the same as VAT here. The question is if I take delivery here, pay VAT, test it out and then send it retaining ownership is a second lot of duty payable in the US

Thanks for any advice

John

[nmoushon]

I don't believe so but you'd have to check. You definately have to pay shipping costs but since its not a sale/purchase I wouldnt think so. I would think it would be no different than sending a package to a friend for xmas that lives in the USA. You can buy insurance seperately too. The only thing I would ask is having it ship twice really worth it? You get it to your place and tested out then have to repack and ship to the USA and then have to retest everything again. I would maybe understand if you would think that the manufacturer would have defects but OO is known for good quality builds. You could call them up and ask them to use extra packing to insure that it stay safe for the extra journey to the USA. I would also pay for freight shipping, if its available, I've heard for large and/or fragile shipments its much better than UPS/FedEx type companies.

[Naemeth]

It's probably a lot safer to have it directly sent to the USA, may even be slightly cheaper as you don't have to pay for shipping twice.

[ronin]

I would expect you to get charges US import duty, simply because you are in effect importing equipment from the UK to the US.

Any US customs decleration with the scope, which you will ahve to make, will have to give the value of the equipment and like the UK they will base their duty etc based on that.

So I would expect you to get 2 lots of shipping charges, 2 lots of insurance charges and the UK and US import charges.

[Bukko]

HI, John,

Just a few thoughts...

I would have expected the USA to have similar duty rates to the UK - 5% and I thought sales tax was around the 5% mark also, so the rest woudl be OO transport costs. I would guess this is air freight, so if there is no hurry, there might be good savings to use sea freight?

Maybe even better would be you to arrange your own freighting company - or your USA buddies might have access to better rates and can arrange collection and deal with any local charges on your behalf?

So, the risk of exporting faulty goods. Do you live close enough to do a Factory Inspection visit? If not, then OO might be able to check it over more carefully, knowing it's in for a long journey, to make sure it's in perfect condition...

As mentioned above, if you take delivery here first, then export it, you would face double charges everywhere and I am not sure if you can re-claim the VAT on export. Might be worth a call to HMRC to find out..

Anyway, good luck with your project and please let us kow how it turns out !!

Gordon.

[L8-Nite]

Do you plan on having your scope shipped back to you in the future ?

If so, it may be classed differently.

[jetstream]

Hi

I wonder if anybody has any knowledge of sending equipment for use in the USA. I have an Orion Optics UK 14in ODK on order which I was intending to house in my observatory in Cornwall. I have now got involved with a group with a scope hosted at Sierra Remote Observatory in California, with the intention of moving to their own RoR observatory at a really dark site in New Mexico. The ODK get much better use over there with clear skies and good seeing. And it would be very welcome to the rest of the group who contribute various bits of equipment and share resulting subs via Google Drive.

I have established that if I have Orion send the ODK direct to the US Import Duty and Sales Tax comes to much the same as VAT here. The question is if I take delivery here, pay VAT, test it out and then send it retaining ownership is a second lot of duty payable in the US

Thanks for any advice

John

Call US customs-I did this to explore shipment options for my VX10 as I also have a USA shipping address.They may look at it like the Observatory will be the importer,which then duty would be payable by them as the importers of the scope.

The US customs are very helpful if you are upfront with them and give full disclosure of your intentions.

[jabberwock48]

Thanks for the info guys

I doubt if it will be worth ever bringing the scope back  - easier to sell over there if we break up and none of the partners want it.. So I think it will be more sensible to have Orion UK sent it to one of my US partners - probably in Georgia where the sales tax is apparently 4% rather than the 9% in parts of California.

Regards

John