FEDEX ADDS INTERNATIONAL DUTY AND TAX CALCULATOR
FedEx Corp. has announced an online planning tool that allows shippers to obtain information about charges and fees in the overseas shipping process before they ship. This includes excise, other duties, value-added tax, Most Favored Nation rates and other governmental fees that are levied on international shipments to and from 42 countries.
FedEx said its online application is “the first carrier-provided, online duty and tax estimator.”
The new online tool will pit FedEx against specialized providers of online landed cost and customs rules engines, such as Vastera and ClearCross.
“International shippers now have an easier and more affordable way to estimate the multitude of governmental charges, duties and other fees associated with many of their inbound and outbound overseas shipments,” FedEx said.
FedEx technology powers the “Estimate Duties and Taxes” application on http://www.fedex.com, offering shippers instant, round-the-clock, daily access and visibility to information. The online tool is provided within the company’s Internet-based FedEx global trade manager application.
FedEx said its new service is “a valuable business tool for companies large and small that need to provide upfront duty and tax information to customers before shipping.”
Imperial Graphics Inc. of Grand Rapids, Mich., said estimates of such costs helps streamline the shipping process.
“International trade is complex, so it is critical that our 200 monthly international shipments don’t get delayed in customs,” said Dan Polkowski, distribution and logistics manager for Imperial Graphics. The company can estimate duties and taxes, but the process has been manual and time-consuming. Imperial Graphics said that the FedEx duty and tax estimator speeds up the process.
“We can input a few facts then print out the calculation-results screen to send to our customers in advance of shipping,” Polkowski said. He added that the FedEx estimator also eliminates one invoice in his company’s billing process.
Another feature of the FedEx duty and tax estimator is integrated Harmonized System Code identification. The HS Code is an internationally accepted uniform-description system for classifying goods for customs, statistical reporting and other purposes.
FedEx said that a recent survey of 40 American, European and Asian logistics managers by Forrester Research found that:
* More than half of the managers either had no way to predict duty and tax costs, or they had to calculate such costs manually.
* They did not know the degree of accuracy for their calculated information.
* They did not know the frequency in which regulatory compliance information they had access to was updated.
FedEx will charge $5 per transaction to use the tax and duty application, regardless of the number of commodities in a single shipment. This covers shipments to or from 42 countries in North America, South America, Europe and Asia.