If you plan to ship your goods from abroad it is possible to get exemption from import taxes and duties when you are moving here permanently. As a former Filipino or Dual Citizen with intent on living here indefinitely, one can apply for full exemption from duty and taxes pursuant to Section 105 of the Tariff and Customs Code, as amended, and Section 109 of RA No. 8424 now Section 109 (d) of Republic Act No. 9337, subject to certain conditions. The shipment must not include commercial quantity but should only consist of used household goods or personal effects. These household goods or personal effects are only for personal use and not for sale or hire and should be brought from the applicant’s former place of abode. The privilege of free-entry should have never been granted before which means this must be the first time it was ever availed. Motor vehicles, vessels or aircraft or machineries and other similar articles for use in manufacture are not eligible for exemption.

In order avail of this, I had to submit the following:

We submitted all of the above at the 8th Floor of the Department of Finance building located at the Central Bank Compound next to Harrison Plaza. When you arrive, mention that your destination is the “Mabuhay Lane”. And before I forget, have at least 3 copies of all the documents I mentioned and bring all the originals if possible, especially your passport and birth certificate.

Initially, we hired the services of a Customs Broker but it turned out that they were incompetent in handling this part of the process so I took the initiative to process it myself. When we first visited DOF, we found out that we were missing so much of the requirements that the officer even scolded our broker. The broker did not properly do their homework and our visit was then wasted! Well, looking back at it now I am glad I accompanied the broker. The letters and affidavit they prepared for me had many important missing information, typographical and stupid mistakes putting in the wrong country of origin! However, for the customs part, I am leaving this to them and I hope they wouldn’t make the same sloppy job as they did for the DOF Exemption. They did mention to me that this wasn’t in their regular service offering so I guess I can overlook this for now. However, I am utterly frustrated for their attitude in handling it in general. I had to follow them up daily otherwise they would not really call me up and inform me of what documents were missing or needed. That’s one thing I am warning all of you to make sure when you hire your broker that they are reliable or maybe have some good references.
So in the end, I was lucky to be able to get my letter of approval on the same day. I submitted it at around 10AM and was able to pick it up around 1:30PM. But I had to watch them like a hawk and be present most of the time. Otherwise, you’ll never know. I had to do this because I didn’t want to leave both my passports there. The next step would be to submit this to the Customs officers at the Port. I left the documents today and they said they will work on it on Monday. Our goods arrived five days ago and she said that they have not yet stripped the goods yet. We only start paying for warehouse storage after the goods are stripped. So anyway, I’m crossing my fingers that everything will work out well. Stay tuned for the next part of the story!

• The Plan in Stages