Filling out 'value' on a customs form?
My job involves purchasing items for overseas universities, then shipping them to the schools. The schools reimburse me for the cost.
I recently purchased a number of back issues of law journals for a school in Nigeria. Law journals tend to be very expensive. When I shipped the packages, I created a packing list with what I paid for each volume included. I totaled it up, and put the total amount paid as the ‘value’ and ‘total value’ on the customs form.
The school later contacted me and said that they were astonished at the customs fees they had to pay, and that even explaining that the items were for educational use (which I also put on the forms) could not reduce the cost. They asked me not to put the cost on the packages visibly.
Now. I just want to be sure I’m understanding, and doing things right.
When I put down the ‘value’ on the customs forms, is it the amount I paid for the items the correct amount? (For instance, I also ship used books, and put a very low value on them, since the schools don’t pay for those books. I also ship new magazines (and they reimburse me for what I paid), but the value on those is lower than what I paid, because if I had to replace the items, I could likely get replacements from the publishers or other libraries for free.)
I’m also a bit confused because I’m not sure if I’m considered a "seller". I’m not making any profit on these transactions, and it doesn’t seem like the schools are buying the items from ME, necessarily, I’m just a middleman, because I have access to things that they don’t, in their locations.
On the other hand, the items aren’t exactly ‘gifts’, either. 
I am not comfortable with ‘lying’ on the forms, but just like you don’t add the cost of shipping to the ‘value’ of an item, I’m not 100% sure whether the amount I’m using as ‘value’ is accurate, or the ONLY way to determine the value of the contents.
Many of the schools I do this for do not have much money (which is why they often get free books from me in the first place). I just want to get items to them as economically as possible.
(Also, it just occurred to me – some of these journals were ordered from and shipped to me from places like India and Australia….and I didn’t have to pay any customs to receive them. What makes the difference? Why then should customs have to be paid when I send them on? Am I just not filling the forms out correctly? Would simply not putting a ‘value’ on my packing list help things, and if so, what then should I put on the customs form?)
Thank you! Yeah, I had a feeling that they were going to just be SOL, but I just wanted to be sure there wasn’t a legal way around it (or some of it) that I simply wasn’t aware of.
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Tags: back issues, customs fees, job, law journals, libraries, magazines, middleman, much money, nigeria, overseas universities, packing list, publishers, replacements, t pay, total value
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You listed the items correctly.
What you paid, not including shipping.
You described the items accurately.
End of story,
The US customs form is a government document. Lying on it is a felony. You can’t list gift (they are paying for them, right?). You can’t short change the price.
And you can’t control what *their* customs department does. What their country taxes them has nothing to do with what the US customs taxes you.