Item — HN Reader

Indonesia is the worst. Recently I attended a webinar that give free t-shirt for early attendees. I received whatsapp from the courier, telling me to pay USD40 for custom and taxes for the free t-shirt. I told him, you can keep the t-shirt (sent from India).

When I told this to my friends, they said it's normal. Sometimes they buy books and got taxed twice the price of the books.

1 comments

Indonesia has really high import tariff for clothing/garments to protect local industries. The import tax should be <20% for typical consumer goods, and free for books since 2020 (actually I never got taxed buying books from international sellers in the past few years). If your experience is recent, maybe you're actually dealing with corrupt officials/employees trying to make quick buck?