Wallace International was contacted by a large national company in Melbourne regarding a substantial Freight project involving 14 x 40’ containers. They had already placed this order overseas.
The German supplier arranged a CIF Term (Carriage and Insurance Paid to) which took the 14 containers as far as Melbourne Port with no documentation submitted for the process. At this point, there was no consultation with regards to the Import Clearance requirements nor the Import Duty and Tax liabilities.
With the cargo being a multi-million dollar recycling plant, the consignment’s handling and landside logistics were complex, incurring a significant Import Duty cost.
The current Tariff Heading would have the goods being classified in a generic heading in Chap 84.19 as “Machinery, Plant or Laboratory Equipment, for the treatment of materials by a process involving a change of temperature”; attracting a General Import Duty Rate of 5%! There is no current Tariff Concession Gazetted to include goods similar to this plant equipment.
After explaining the import process and options available to the consignee, we proceeded to make the application for a Tariff Concession Order and classified the goods as a complete plant. Other issues arose regarding the split consignment/shipping that we had no control over, however we were able to advert By-law issues, and manage the smooth clearance, transport, staging, unpack and re-delivery onto site in order for installation.
The TCO was approved and a refund of the Import Duty was paid back resulting on a very grateful client thanking us for our professionalism and timing on managing the overall project.