Hi All,
I bought a La Peppina on ebay.it and it is being shipped to me in Washington. I am not sure if this will be as simple as receiving a package from a US Ebay seller, or if there are special hoops to jump through. I know I am not the first to go through this, but searching did not bring me any answers.

Thanks for your help,
Dan

How did it ship? If it's UPS, you may get a surprise invoice for the dutiable value in a couple weeks.

Contributing factors:
- Did they declare it used?
- Does it look used?
- What value was it insured for? (Customs figured out that people might try to claim a dutiable value of $50 and an insurable value of $1000. They pick the higher one.)
- Duty rate on whatever HTS classification this thing falls under.
- Brokerage fees.

Good luck with it.

WES

Since I deal with this in my job, I kept digging. HTS or "customs codes" are totally arcane, amusing, infuriating and subject to wide interpretation.

Here's something that may give you an idea of what to expect. It's for a Chinese made DeLonghi:

"The applicable subheading for the electric coffee grinder will be 8509.40.0040, Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTS), which provides for electromechanical domestic appliances, with self-contained electric motor, food grinders, processors and mixers, food grinders and processors. The rate of duty will be 4.2 percent ad valorem.
The applicable subheading for the espresso/cappuccino coffee maker will be 8516.71.0060, Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTS), which provides for other electrothermic appliances of a kind
used for domestic purposes, other electrothermic appliances, coffee or tea makers, coffee makers, other. The rate of duty will be 4 percent ad valorem.
The applicable subheading for the frothing pitcher will be 7323.93.0060, Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTS), which provides for table, kitchen or other household articles, of iron or steel, other, of stainless steel, cooking and kitchen ware, other, kitchen ware. The rate of duty will be 2.3 percent ad valorem."

Apparently, the espresso machine industry needs 0.2% less protection than the grinder industry. There doesn't seem to be any note of the Country of Origin so it could be the same for yours. 4% is not too bad and unless you paid tons of money for it, the brokerage should be more expensive.

All taken from here - http://rulings.customs.gov/index.asp
Search under espresso and there's some good stuff on the percentage of origin for a Francis X1 and the motors for a *$ superautomatic. They go deep into the production process for the Francis machine.

WES

I just can't stop myself....



Maybe you'll get the 3.7%.

From the 2009 HTS online book.

WES

Wow. I guess I should have known there would be a ton of rules. Thanks for doing the research!

We've bought literally hundreds of items from ebayers in Italy, and they have all arrived either by DHL, or more commonly, USPS, and have never yet had a duty charge, or customs charge, or surcharge of any kind. Of course, that could change tomorrow....

When I had a Peppina shipped from France, there was no duty. However, the idiot seller shipped it in a flimsy corrugated box for vegetables --think heavy-gauge cupcake paper-- and the flaps were crisscrossed too, so the box had no rigidity whatsoever.