Import questions

[mychurch]

Folks

Amazing how life changes and it looks like I will be moving to Melbourne at the start of next year. Still waiting on the work Visa, but apparently that should be no problem...

I have no idea what to do with the wine here. Most of the big names stuff is in the U.K. in bond, while here I have 350 or so bottles, mostly in the interesting but not rare category.

As I understand it

- I can ship back wine bought already in Auz without any duty (those 5 cases of Wendouree we paid so much to fly over to Europe last year...)
- on the others I have to pay duty and VAT on the wine

My questions on the latter at

- if I take a bottle of Rousseau over, do I pay vat on the current value (say $1000) or the value it cost me. From previous threads, I think people have indicated that it's the latter
- i have spent the last few years collecting odd white wines that are not expensive, $30 on avg, and have virtually no re-sale value. I'm hoping these would come in vat free...

There is no way we are going to get through the spirits in the next 8 weeks, and Trudi would love to take her bottles of gin with her - all open. I told her that she would have to pay duty on them all, and she was a bit shocked...can I console her by saying they might let them in for free ?

Realistic plan at the moment is to sell as much as I can before we leave and to then store the rest with friends. In theory we'll be back in 3 years, but I doubt it, and shipping bottles both ways sounds like a great way to experiment in heat damage...

Any advice would be welcome

Cameron

[TiggerK]

I'm far from an expert on the topic, but I do know that if you can show receipts for the higher end stuff you'll only have to pay tax and duty on what you paid for the wine and spirits, not current pricing. Current pricing may apply if you have no receipts, then they decide to get overly fussy and look up each wine as they go. Often they will just put a token value on each bottle, but I've not had any experience with such bulk, just an overloaded suitcase or three, mainly from NZ, where they generally can't be bothered calculating 20 bottles (should be 3 p.person) and let it pass... much more interested in the wooden trinket or bits of straw packing around said trinket.

[Ian S]

Hi Cameron
No experience of moving wine like this, but I'd agree with your thinking that if there is a chance of returning in 3 years, then now is not the time to move the cellar in its entirety.

Certainly if returning in 3 years is feasible, then you could defer the decision, just moving / selling stuff that may be on the downslope in 3 year's time.

In bond makes for easy sales. The auction houses are generally rapacious, but some are better than others. Although a pain to get to, Strakers (in Abergavenny, North Wales) are highly regarded and charge low buyer's premiums (individual negotiation on seller's premiums). Plenty of brokers around, plus some independant traders e.g. Jake's wine and foods who trade in wine (a friend used to be in this business but has retired now).

Finally, the wine forum Wine Pages has a vinxchange where individuals can buy/sell/trade wines for free as long as it's not commercial, and your situation isn't, so worth a look. The forumites often aim for winesearcher pro less 20-30% as a benchmark for pricing, but you ask what you want, usually with ~ offers coming in 5-10% below what you ask for (at times irrespective of whether the price is sharp or not ). Say whether you'll be paying postage, or postage at cost (often the offers are along the lines of full price, if you'll throw postage in for free). If you don't post there, worth mentioning you post here and although I've not posted there for a while, feel free to say I suggested it to you, which should help people understand this isn't just some dubious rogue turning up. They also like to ask about the cellaring, just to check that the wine hasn't been stored in an attic, so save time by saying how they've been cellared up front (e.g. Wine fridge, underground cellar, in bond with Octavian etc.). Once registered on the site, you'll have to ask Tom Cannavan for access to vinxchange to post, which should only take a day or two. There is interest across a broad spectrum, from the fanciest Burgs through to really eclectic stuff. It's a bit more effort, but probably gets you the best price, and they get a decent bargain as well.

Regards
Ian

[mychurch]

Ian

I´m on Toms site and have been for a very long time. If you give me a choice of real names or pseudonyms, then I´d normally choose the latter, so here its mychurch and there its Cameron.

TriggerK

It may well be as you say regarding the value. When Trudi arranged to ship the Wendouree over from Auz to NL they were happy enough at this end to put the value as $1 per bottle as long as we paid the duty. Might be the same would apply going the other way....

[Sigmamupi]

When the two of you return, I would bring back the 6 most valuable wines that you might wish to drink in Australia and treat them as your duty free allowance (2.25 litres per person). If you do this, you can't add in spirits as the 2.25 litres is a limit for all alcohol.

As TiggerK says, you can try more and declare it on the chance that Border couldn't be bothered doing what the law requires them to do which is to charge you duty/WET/GST. If you are over the limit and they do charge you tax, you will pay on all the wine not just the amount over and if you don't have invoices they will probably use current market value.

As to the rest, my advice is to forget about trying to bringing it back here. You would have to engage in a commercial importation and the freight company put in a formal customs entry, for which a substantiated value (ie invoices) would be required. I have only done one such importation which was a 6 pack of Domaine Cecile Tremblay a number of years ago using TNT as the freight company. The customs duty/WET/GST on an importation of value $A582 (and that was free of French TVA) totalled $A452.35, in addition to the freight charge! Under the old sales tax regime prior to 2000 personal imports of wine were free of sales tax but not under the WET/GST regime - another thing you can blame Peter Costello for.

Btw, I am not sure if there is still an exemption for reimport of Australian wine. Obviously there will be no customs duty but I think WET and GST still would apply to the Wendouree. If you intended to bring the Wendouree back I would carefully check this. To the best of my knowledge, there is no chance of the spirits coming in free of duty and GST, whether that is through a commercial import or as an excess over your personal duty free allowance.

[felixp21]

Hi Cameron,
I commercially import wine into Australia, almost solely from France and Germany.
Advice in one line: take your most expensive 6 bottles with you, leave the rest there.
Firstly, there is no exemption for wine purchased in Australia, taken outside the country, and then re-entered. You will be required to pay full tax, unless you get a very sympathetic Border Control Officer. The value of your wine will be calculated by them unless you have a receipt not more than 12 months old that clearly identifies the wine. (however, I have heard of BC accepting older receipts in the case of non-commercial importers such as yourself)
To the tax-free/wholesale value of the wine they decide upon, they will add the cost of transportation/insurance of the wine from point of origin to Melbourne Border Control (in your case) Then, having calculated the total cost, they will add 29% WET, 3% duty (might be 4%, depending on all sorts of things) and 10% GST. Again, sometimes a sympathetic BC officer might waive GST if he/she is totally satisfied the shipment is for private use only.
IMO, unless you are certain you are moving to Melbourne for good, leave it OS and sort it out at a much later date, or when you return. Keep your receipts, and if you do decide to bring the wine in, use a reliable and high quality transport comapny.

[Ian S]

Hi Felix
I think you forgot to add that they take the importer's first born as collateral for these fees, and parade the importer naked through the airport terminal to ensure no bottles are hidden from view...

Adding the transportation/insurance costs onto the taxable total is obscene, considering they are slapping 42% on it. Utterly obscene.

Regards
Ian

[felixp21]

Hi Felix
I think you forgot to add that they take the importer's first born as collateral for these fees, and parade the importer naked through the airport terminal to ensure no bottles are hidden from view...

Adding the transportation/insurance costs onto the taxable total is obscene, considering they are slapping 42% on it. Utterly obscene.

Regards
Ian

yes, haha.
while that is true, actually the most obscene part is the wondrous mark-ups charged by importers in Australia. I have seen 7 euro wines ex-cellar retail for $80. As you can see, the tax simply doesn't explain even a third of that.

[Polymer]

Huge markups...especially on the harder to get stuff....

[mychurch]

Thanks folks.

Confirms what I already suspected - don't take the wine with me.

Contacted an auction house here today, so somebody is going to get lucky next year...2 lots of Wendouree and a nice mixed case of 98 Auz wine...will still leave about 20 cases that I will have to divide between various friends and my mother...

We are taking the Eurocave though, but leaving the 15 year old Leibherr behind..will be interesting to see how quickly it fills up..

[Mike Hawkins]

All the taxes Felix refers to are compounded. For non Aussie wine, it works out to 49.1%. Sadly, I have paid this on close to 800 bottles. That said, for some French wine, even with the taxes, it is often much cheaper than retail. Scarcity in Oz is another issue....

[JamieBahrain]

One year working in HKG is like working 3 in Australia financially due tax. With a wine buying affliction probably 1 year in HKG is worth 4 in Australia.

It really hits home when you pay your 50% duty. You're sharing your bottle with government coffers right down the middle!

[Polymer]

Thanks folks.

Confirms what I already suspected - don't take the wine with me.

Contacted an auction house here today, so somebody is going to get lucky next year...2 lots of Wendouree and a nice mixed case of 98 Auz wine...will still leave about 20 cases that I will have to divide between various friends and my mother...

We are taking the Eurocave though, but leaving the 15 year old Leibherr behind..will be interesting to see how quickly it fills up..

Which Euro auction site?

[asajoseph]

Hi all,

First time poster here.

I'm emigrating to Aus from the UK in a few weeks time, and have done quite a bit of research into this topic.

Unfortunately, the bad news is that there really seems to be no legitimate way around the exorbitant tax cost of importing a wine cellar into Aus. There is one exception - the wine value for declared WET purposes only needs to be 50% of the retail value. How to identify that retail value is not clear, but I'd imagine a recently receipted purchase should suffice.

The good(ish) news is that provided you're happy to use sea freight, and have enough wine to move to cover the minimum transportation amounts (10 cases / 120 bottles, I think, but guess it might different if you find other shippers), it's still more economical to send the wine & pay the tax than it would be to buy the same wine at the crazy mark-ups you see in Aus.

Of course, you might decide that the one-off cost is not worth it, and be happy to sell your wine in one location and buy less in another - but if you're really attached to a collection, then it does seem to be worth biting the tax bullet. Two caveats though:-

1) Much (but bizarrely not all) Australian wine is cheaper to sell and re-purchase when you get to Aus
2) All of the above only applies to wine stored in bonded warehouses

I'll be looking to ship around 350 bottles (mostly 6x75 format, but some larger bottles too) sometime next year, after I've arrived and figured out where I'm going to store the stuff. What I'm struggling with is finding more than one firm who'll offer a service to a private collector. I've heard some bizarre stories of people packing wine into empty reefer containers that are returning to Aus after delivering meat to Europe, but I've no idea how to even begin arranging something like that. And frankly, I'm not sure I'd want to.

[asajoseph]

To use an example - I recently purchased a case of Francesco Rinaldi Barolo Brunate for £245(ib) for 6x75 (or £41/bottle).

I calculate the transport cost of that case to be £37.50, and duty, WET & GST comes in at £82.93 - so £120.42 total. Effectively, that means to land a bottle in Aus, I'm effectively paying £61 all-in.

When I last looked (a month ago - this price has since expired), this same wine was retailing for A$118, or £70ish depending on the vagaries of the FX rate. So I'm saving £9/bottle(ish) by shipping it over myself.

Similarly, I suspect I could realise about £33/bottle selling the same case now on the secondary market, and save myself £20/bottle in shipping costs - but I'd still be stumping up the £70 if I wanted to buy it again when I get to Aus.

The main variable here (apart from FX) is the erratic nature of pricing in Australia - using wine-searcher, I don't seem able to find consistent prices and availability for much of my wine (which is not particularly obscure!) - often only 1-2 merchants in Aus seems to have availability, it will disappear, and then come back a couple of months later at a price sometimes 25% different from what I found before (up or down!). So I'll be running this calc for my whole collection about 2-3 weeks before it actually leaves these shores, just to be sure.

[Ian S]

Hi Asa
Welcome to the forum, a few WP names you'll recognise here.

For purchasing in Aus, worth considering auctions, as I've seen a few decent bargains mentioned here.

I hadn't thought about it before, but this scenario does at least show the usefulness of in-bond, as it means that although you have to pay a rapacious Aussie tax, it's not on top of already having paid duty + vat in the UK. That double taxation would make me very upset.

Going back a decade, there was little discussion here of overseas wines, but recent years have seen a significant interest in Italian wines, but also steady increase in French and other european wines. It feels like there is more heading to Aus, and in time you'd hope that would result in tighter pricing, though with 50% tax it's always going to feel a bit pricey vs. UK prices. I suspect when a retailer is the only one selling the wine, there is more opportunity to squeeze a little more profit out.

Re: shipping logistics, I wonder whether Max O on wine pages might have suggestions - IIRC his business was similar but in the reverse direction.

Regards
Ian

[asajoseph]

On a separate note, does anyone know how this works with spirits?

Think the tax regime is apparently very different - though the numbers I've found online seem to be too large to be true.

I am speaking to my wife's favourite artisanal gin producer, with a view to shipping over a few bottles