@beebert AliBaba is just a deal facilitator, not selling anything themselves. They didn't mis-classify anything. The company in china you actually bought from caused a massive tax bill.
Having a lawyer familiar with importation rules for your locale would be the best option to not get a massive import tax bill again.
What is odd is most government agencies are more than willing to work out payment plans before ever threatening jail time?
@logansc I'd say they didn't "threaten" as much as mentioned it was an option if I didn't/couldn't pay. I think it was a scare tactic (and it worked to be fair).
@dianah123 It's weird they keep in changing the requirement. When the called me they wanted Apple gift cards. I guess they now have lots of Macs and need clothing now.
@bmh3d I'm definitely speaking for US only and IANAL/IANYL.
From experience most tax collection agencies will use virtually ANYTHING at their disposal to get money and not put people in jail unless it was serious intentional fraud. Had a boss who had a full time accountant, full time accountant didn't file OR pay our 941's for like 2 years, IRS came knocking, and they worked out a reasonable payment plan basically a "don't do this again".
@beebert To be honest, this should be normalized risk for someone in the import and export business.
People recommend CC specialists because frankly the rules are always changing, even in H.S alone, there is a new edition going to be released in Jan 2022 with at least 350 amendments.
And this is just the expected rules change, we know what happened in recent years with slapping of tariffs on both sides and frequent change in policy for the biggest dick award.
@beebert I am not too familiar with code minutia but my stint at the old logistics company had in-house staff that doubled as consultation for issues like these.
@beebert Look them up every shipment, its not that hard, we all do it for every item. There are expensive third party providers who fix this issue too.
@beebert In my experience, manufacturers are only good at classifying H.T.S. codes if they have lots of experience exporting that specific product into the U.S. That's why trade groups suck. Because they export such a huge range of products that they can't be experts in everything. ImportYeti is helpful for that matter because you can search for different suppliers and see how much they move of the product you're trying to import into the US.
I'm so sorry to hear this happened to you. I would have lost my mind.
@alicog It's definitely a scam he got extorted. It wouldn't be that easy to just indict someone for something like this especially from another country. And they would not just call him over the phone.. I'm sure he would've got served in person.
