Topic: Buying Miners from Bitmain and Customs Duties in India (Read 8673 times)

Hello Friends,

I have ordered eight Antminer s9 units (7 units of 13.5 TH/s and 1 unit of 13 TH/s) and eight power supply units (APW3+-12-1600W,PSU..120 USD each) about a month back on the Bitmain website. The price of Antminer s9 with 13.5 TH/s was 1445 USD and the price of Antminer s9 with 13 TH/s was 1378 USD at the time of placing the orders on the Bitmain website. All the shipments have arrived in the last one week in different batches.

I have placed three orders on Bitmain, 5 Antminer s9 (13.5 TH/s) and 5 PSU in my first order, 1 Antminer s9 (13 TH/s) and 1 PSU in my second order and 2 Antminer s9 (13.5 TH/S) and 2 PSU in my third order. I have spent a total of 14.5538 BTC including shipping. The BTC value at the time of my first two orders was between 901 to 904 USD and was about 981 USD at the time of my third order, but Bitmain took the BTC value for my third order as 917 USD only, I spoke to the Bitmain customer team about this, but they failed to give me a convincing reply and I didn't want to argue further. Anyway, the total value in USD on Invoice copies including shipping is 13226.73 USD.

Although I have placed three orders, Bitmain has sent my orders in Six shipments, I asked Bitmain support team about this, they said miners and power supply units are shipped separately.

Now, Coming to the customs duties in India, I had no idea about how these customs duties are calculated in India. I tried looking online and on bitcointalk, but couldn't find enough information on this. Somebody told me that I won't be charged more than 10 to 15%, this guy claimed he was charged that much only. But I was prepared for 20% in worst case.

The total value on Invoice copies of power supply units including shipping cost is 1221.54 USD (5x120 + 2x120 + 1x120 + shipping cost), I was asked to pay a Duty fee of 26,771.35 INR including all taxes and handling fee from DHL. This amount is nearly 33% of the total value (i.e. 33% of 1221.54 USD). I had no other option but to pay, I paid the amount and received my power supply units.

The Miners are not yet cleared by the customs. When I spoke to the DHL team, they said I will need an IEC and if I don't have one, a dummy IEC should be created and many other documents will be required and it will take more than 20 days for my miners to be cleared by customs and there can be a heavy fine as well. Then I got in touch with one of the DHL representatives, he said it will be better if I applied for an IEC and my shipments will be cleared much quicker. So, first I have to apply for an IEC, then get my IEC updated and to get this job done quickly, I should get a broker and pay him 5k INR to 10k INR. After all this is completed, the Duty fee on my Antminers will be calculated.

The total value on Invoice copies of Miners including shipping cost is 12005.43 USD (5x1445 + 2x1445 + 1x1378 + shipping cost), going by the amount of Duty fee I paid for the power supply units, I'm sure the duty fee for the miners will be more than 2,65,000 INR and have to see if they'll fine anything extra. I will update this thread when Duty fee on the Miners is calculated.

This is my first experience in importing and it has become a nightmare for me. I'm also not happy with Bitmain, I personally think that they should have done something to lessen the burden of taxes on their customers. I still don't understand why they have put the shipping charges on the Invoice, the least they could have done is to not include the shipping charges on the Invoice. I also feel that they should have mentioned the HS codes on the Invoice or somewhere instead of leaving that option to someone who doesn't know anything about these goods. May be I should just blame myself for not digging deeper in to all these before placing the orders.

I hope this thread will help the Indian customers who're planning to buy Antminers from Bitmain and give them some idea about the Customs Duties in India.