Australian Customs Tax

[pico]

If you live in Australia, how much tax have you been paying lately?

Previously I was being charged tax on 37% of the weight (to account for water content) so this worked out around 18grams of actual tobacco content for a 50g loose box. Then get charged around $300 per kilogram from this actual tobacco weight.

Today I phoned up to get a package cleared, and was told that they have been undercharging for smokeless tobacco, and it should be for 100% of the weight regardless of water content. So needless to say this works out very expensive now.

Had to pay $167 for one roll of loose in tax (thats just tax).. so now I'm thinking of stopping

[phish]

That is absolutely insane! 100% tax. Do you even get charged if you get it sent through the normal post service?

[pico]

Not exactly sure what you mean by normal post service. I've only ever had snus shipped by 1st class mail (not UPS) but I'd assume all packages regardless of what service is used to send them would pass through customs.

I have later (after original post) remembered that there are some new smoking regulations coming in on the 1st of July, prohibiting smoking in pubs and other such venues. Perhaps this is why the tax has gone crazy for smokeless tobacco, so the government can get there money for people who decide to switch, heh. But I still think its wrong.

I've looked on the customs website and it says '$300.39/kg of tobacco content'

Might make some inquires tomorrow about it, I'd really like to continue using snus.

[AlrightMister]

Wow, and I was mad when I got an $8 invoice for customs and brokerage fees after ordering from Northerner. Sounds like you need to go grey market sir.

[brendo20]

Pico,

My first order was 12 cans, and they charged me an extra $55 in tax plus a GST I think.

My last few orders I have kept down to 6 cans, and I haven't received any word from customs at all.

It means I have to do an order roughly once a month, but it works out much cheaper... It's a pain, as most of these guys save money by ordering big rolls of the stuff, but down here in John Howard's right wing wonderland, unfortunately we have to keep it tight.

I was annoyed and, like you, thinking about quitting, but if you keep your orders to under 7 cans or so, you should have no problems.

[pico]

Yeah you have to pay GST on duty, such a fine service they are providing

Strange, my first order was for 3 cans, and that was stopped at customs. Might try ordering 6 next time, maybe its the magic number.
I would have thought your mail would go through the Melbourne gateway facility (I live in melb) which makes it more odd.

Do you order from the same site all the time? If so which? I know buysnus/northerner label the packages differently.. maybe its got something to do with that.

[brendo20]

My first order was well over a year ago. An 8 can sample box from Notherner. The package was marked "Chewing Tobacco" and it came straight through to me.

Second order was the 12 cans thru Notherther that I told u about, it was labelled "Snus."

My last 2 6 can orders were from Buysnus, the package was labelled by a company called "Make Zest" and the parcel was marked "Swedish Snus." For some reason, this posed no problems. My reccomendation is to try Buysnus, although I really don't understand why they charge you and not me. You live in Victoria? I'm not understanding why it would come through accross the river to me with no problems, and be held up and inspected for you. Very strange.

[pico]

Yeah I do live in Victoria, it is strange. I'll try 6 cans from buysnus on my next order. I've quite a bit in the freezer now anyway so I should be good for awhile.

Thanks for the tips.

[brendo20]

$72 tax for 6 cans..... It's a Time To Kill

-----Insert bitter, twisted and unpatriotic post here-----

[Subtilo]

^if you had any idea how often I sound like that ... :wink:

I truly feel sorry for you guys down under. If I had the time and money I'd establish a secret mail order service and sneak vast amounts of good stuff your way.

[pico]

Damn, its a shame your stuff got stopped at customs this time brendo20.
I'm still not sure what I'm going to do yet, I've still got around 12 cans in the freezer so I'm ok for awhile.

On a side note, wouldn't it be ironic if one of us won the snus lottery at northerner. You've won 365cans of snus which you'll need to pay around 3x the cost to get, heh.

[brendo20]

My guess is it would be cheaper to go to sweden, pick up the snus and have a 12 month holiday over there in 5 star hotels every night.

[pico]

It might be worth looking into trying to make our own snus. I know you can order kits to make your own, there has been a post about it on this site.
http://www.snuson.com/viewtopic.php?t=330

Since we are getting charged the exact same amount in tax for tobacco regardless of whether its dry or moist, it will work out much cheaper. I think for the 500g of dry tobacco snus-kit you can make 1.4kg of snus, sounds good. You'll pay around $150 in tax (just duty, need to add in GST after this) for the 500g of dry tobacco, as opposed to around $450 you'd pay for about 1.4kg of snus, lol.

Think I might give this a try when I start to run low on snus.

[brendo20]

So is this dry tobacco steam cured in the traditional snus way? I hope so... I guess it will be just a matter of adding water, flavour and cooling the mix down afterwards. If the dry tobacco is steam cured and already ground, that should be perfect...

I would like to experiment with a chocolate snus... It may be disgusting... Chocolate with artificial sweetner for healthy teeth haha. But most likely i'll add some coffee to it similar to the mix that catch make. That should be interesting. The next step will be buying sheets of Porus to make potion bags. Who knows mate, we could even make some money out of this... Under the table of course. You know as well as I do that mail is unchecked when it is sent within the country. It could be very interesting indeed.

[chainsnuser]

We already have a nice thread, which should answer most questions about making snus from raw tobacco:

http://www.snuson.com/viewtopic.php?t=330

Cheers!