Importing laptop into India
rsaeon
Guide
Let's clear some more points here.
Gifts sent by mail or post or courier are taxed at over 70%. High value items were fraudulently declared as gift parcels in the past so the laws were changed and now no one benefits by sending something as a gift.
Only rejected commercial imports are returned to sender, and only in certain circumstances where you pay a fine/penalty/challan for the return — in the tens of thousands to lakhs of rupees.
Unclaimed personal shipments are destroyed and/or disposed. Sometimes they are auctioned, but those are closed auctions, not open for the public.
Proper paperwork is required with each and every package sent to India — without it, customs has the right to destroy/dispose/auction the shipment. Again, these officers are insanely patriotic, if they feel the shipment is of value, they will send you a notice by post to come declare the value of the shipment in person with notorized bank statements — so you'll need to travel to the place of import, usually Mumbai for shipments from the west. Basically, they'll give you a chance to pay customs tax before destroying/disposing/auctioning the shipment. This is because they still want you to keep importing and keep paying taxes to the government.
Those are mostly ill-informed people who think the customs office works like Amazon Prime delivery.
Customs officials have the authority to asses parcels at their own discretion (if notorized bank statements from a current account is not presented to them — savings account statements are usually not accepted) and they're not obligated to babysit your parcel and make sure no harm comes to it. They also don't have to reply to emails or pickup phone calls — the only thing that works is meeting in person with everything prepared beforehand. Otherwise you're just wasting their time that would be better spent in getting taxes collected from another person. That's the reality of their job. They see hundreds of people who import things without knowledge, thinking that India's border is as open as the ones in the west.
And you won't find it in government positions of prestige like immigration and customs. These people have a different kind of mindset and if you interact with them, you'll see what I mean. They deeply believe they're doing a service to the country and will walk in every day with perfectly ironed clothes, polished shoes and have a generally neat-and-tidy demeanour. They're also unusually compassionate and will talk sweetly to you when informing you of devastatingly bad news like having to pay a huge challan that's worth far more than the shipment itself.
Also If you knew of the benefits these employees get from the government, you'll see that no bribe is worth losing their position. Free housing, vehicles/appliances purchased at ridiculously low prices, among other things.
I'm astounded by the lack of real-world knowledge and experience that people have about how the government works when it involves borders, commerce and/or regulations.
It's like as kids they've never had to redo a year of college because they forgot their hall ticket at home and were barred from their final exams. There are no second chances.
Importing goods is not within the realm of regular people. India is very defensive about it's economy so all of these rules and taxes are in place to keep you spending money in India and not sending it abroad.
This is also the reason why hand-carried personal electronics items are not taxed, you earned that money abroad and you're bringing it back to India in the form of goods. Gold is a different story.
Gifts sent by mail or post or courier are taxed at over 70%. High value items were fraudulently declared as gift parcels in the past so the laws were changed and now no one benefits by sending something as a gift.
Only rejected commercial imports are returned to sender, and only in certain circumstances where you pay a fine/penalty/challan for the return — in the tens of thousands to lakhs of rupees.
Unclaimed personal shipments are destroyed and/or disposed. Sometimes they are auctioned, but those are closed auctions, not open for the public.
Proper paperwork is required with each and every package sent to India — without it, customs has the right to destroy/dispose/auction the shipment. Again, these officers are insanely patriotic, if they feel the shipment is of value, they will send you a notice by post to come declare the value of the shipment in person with notorized bank statements — so you'll need to travel to the place of import, usually Mumbai for shipments from the west. Basically, they'll give you a chance to pay customs tax before destroying/disposing/auctioning the shipment. This is because they still want you to keep importing and keep paying taxes to the government.
Those are mostly ill-informed people who think the customs office works like Amazon Prime delivery.
Customs officials have the authority to asses parcels at their own discretion (if notorized bank statements from a current account is not presented to them — savings account statements are usually not accepted) and they're not obligated to babysit your parcel and make sure no harm comes to it. They also don't have to reply to emails or pickup phone calls — the only thing that works is meeting in person with everything prepared beforehand. Otherwise you're just wasting their time that would be better spent in getting taxes collected from another person. That's the reality of their job. They see hundreds of people who import things without knowledge, thinking that India's border is as open as the ones in the west.
And you won't find it in government positions of prestige like immigration and customs. These people have a different kind of mindset and if you interact with them, you'll see what I mean. They deeply believe they're doing a service to the country and will walk in every day with perfectly ironed clothes, polished shoes and have a generally neat-and-tidy demeanour. They're also unusually compassionate and will talk sweetly to you when informing you of devastatingly bad news like having to pay a huge challan that's worth far more than the shipment itself.
Also If you knew of the benefits these employees get from the government, you'll see that no bribe is worth losing their position. Free housing, vehicles/appliances purchased at ridiculously low prices, among other things.
I'm astounded by the lack of real-world knowledge and experience that people have about how the government works when it involves borders, commerce and/or regulations.
It's like as kids they've never had to redo a year of college because they forgot their hall ticket at home and were barred from their final exams. There are no second chances.
Importing goods is not within the realm of regular people. India is very defensive about it's economy so all of these rules and taxes are in place to keep you spending money in India and not sending it abroad.
This is also the reason why hand-carried personal electronics items are not taxed, you earned that money abroad and you're bringing it back to India in the form of goods. Gold is a different story.
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