Some of my favourite shopping spots are in foreign places and thanks to internet shopping, I can get goods to fly to me instead of the other way around. Be warned, though – recent changes mean these foreign purchases aren’t the cheap trip they used to be. \n\n1. The bad news\n\nThere’s long been a rumour that you can buy clothes from overseas for up to $NZ400 without incurring any extra tax, but this is not true. I came very unstuck recently when I bought some of my favourite knitwear on sale from US store Eileen Fisher.\n\nBasically, it was held for ransom until I forked out almost $200 more to Customs. The courier company didn’t know why, just that I had to pay the combination of GST, duty, an extra courier fee and a $49.24 “import entry transaction fee”. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind paying tax, but I did mind not knowing that I had to – and don’t get me started on the “import entry transaction fee”.
