Shipping personal effects to Malaysia for relocation

The usual criteria is new items are subject to import duty, but items owned for 6 months or longer are not taxable. You could contact Subalipack (M) Sdn Bhd to check this out. They were my Destination Agent and they are fantastic. Of course any services in Malaysia now have 6% tax on them. All taxes are locally stipulated. Just to put GST in perspective, its eqivalent to 0.06 sen per RM1 spent, so extremely low compared to some countries.

Hello Hana Kobe

You may browse through threads in our Tips for moving to Kuala Lumpur, this might help you gather some infos while waiting for some members to revert back

Kenjee
Expat.com Team

Thanks guys for the information.

I understand GST has just been implemented for the first time ever in Malaysia but why does it have to apply to non-commercial goods? In other countries, GST is applicable to saleable/tradeable goods, not old personal belongings. It just doesn't make sense.

cheers,
H

Hana - it does not apply to goods purchased in another country and imported - its just paying for services i.e. the combined cost at each end of a relocation may have GST-type tax which will affect the cost.  However, the UK does not charge GST on removal expenses as they are being exported and are not for local consumption. 

Its import duty on goods less than six months old (like cars). The destination agent in Malaysia will now have to charge GST on their services, which will presumably make the overall cost a little higher.

GST the world over is a wealth tax - people who spend more (who presumably have more money at their disposal) end up paying more tax. The test will be if and how the GST in Malaysia is recycled back into the community, so everyone actually benefits from it.

Thanks for clarifying,
So because my stuff is old and some given to me, there is no dollar value to them for others eg. old furniture and clothes, 24 yr-old piano, hard copies of my work portfolio, old models which I refuse to trash, etc. How do we work out the amount to base the GST on?

Did you ever get an answer for this question? I just shipped a number of things (PC, monitor) with DHL from USA to Malaysia and DHL does not want to release my shipment unless I pay them GST on this which adds up to almost RM500. Find this quite ridiculous and am trying to find some documentation about this but of course the websites are all pretty useless.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

No one told me because GST was newly implemented then. But for my shipment I was not taxed a cent as I was moving back from overseas for the first time after three decades away. If I were to move something else again, I might be liable to pay some GST (considered as imported goods). So it depends on your shipment status.

cheers

Oh, btw forgot to add that I met a Russian chick who DHL-ed her stuff and got taxed but when she shipped the rest with an international mover it wasn't. I used an international mover. Hope that helps.