"Hoges in WA" wrote in message
...
"John Murfet" wrote in message
...
As a resident of Australia, if I travel to USA and purchase a used
yacht
then go on to cruise Europe do I pay import duty when I eventually
return
to
Australia? If so how is the value of the boat assessed? It will have
devalued somewhat over the 3 or 4 years.
Hope someone can help.


Go to the Aust Customs home page. You pay 5% of the value. THEN you pay
10% GST (I kid you not).
This set of papers says......, this set of papers says that! As with any
effort to value anything for tax purposes (or duty in this case), you
probably should make it as much in your favour as possible.

--
Hoges in WA
Remove the zeds.


Yep, what he said...duty plus GST

For a new boat, freighted to Australia on a ship, valuation is relatively
straightforward. For a second hand boat, sailed to Australia, valuation can
be a nightmare

Valuation will be current valuation at time of import. Original purchase
price and subsequent work done may or may not be relevant. As far as I
understand...Customs will value your boat as they see it at import, if you
disagree with it you can obtain your own valuations and slug it out with
Customs. In the courts, if need be, depending on the amount of money
involved. Some examples of some of the issues. Say you buy a boat at the
bottom of the cycle in the US, at a bargain price, at a good exchange rate,
and turn up in Australia some years later with the actual bill of sale as
proof of price paid.....Customs may or may not accept that, but are more
likely to substitute their own current valuation. GST is levied on a final
price including freight......so what if you sailed the boat to Australia at
zero freight cost, Customs are entitled to impute a freight value.

Some years back I seriously investigated importing a yacht from NZ, when
$1AUD would buy $1.30NZ, and NZ boat prices seemed to be in a trough. Duty,
GST and red tape removed a lot of the attractiveness and I did not proceed.
At the time I was looking at a Cavalier which were selling for a lot less in
NZ than Australia (for the same boat, same NZ builder). Customs would not
give me a straight answer, but I formed the view that they would value the
boat at current Australian prices, rather than the price actually paid. The
question of imputed freight was left hanging. GST had only just been
introduced then, maybe things are more settled and clearer now.

..