How To Import A Stagea?

[emanuelt]

Does anyone know how hard or costly it is to import a Stagea from NZ? Any loop holes? Friend from NZ living here imports one, buy it off him in a sertain time frame to reduce tax or something... Any sites with import laws????

[funkymonkey]

Does anyone know how hard or costly it is to import a Stagea from NZ?  Any loop holes? Friend from NZ living here imports one, buy it off him in a sertain time frame to reduce tax or something... Any sites with import laws????

checked out a few of the Stagea's in NZ, most of them are clapped out and run down with high mileage. The only decent ones worth buying are too expensive, or are modified (ie showcar style). Stageas in NZ is like a commodore wagon here. Plus you'll pay tax twice on the car (once for when it came into NZ, and once when it comes into Australia). Also its cheaper to ship a car from Japan, than it is from NZ... wierd as that sounds.

You can land Stageas from Japan from $11,000 including compliance, totally legitimately. No point trying to run circles around the law when its that straight forward.

[sy300]

What do you mean 'Stageas in NZ are like Commodores here'?

There are not that many Stageas here in NZ.

As for most of them being 'clapped out' I would have to disagree. I searched for mine and drove a few, most were around 100,000 (verified) km but still in good condition. I have only seen a couple of modified 'show car' Stageas here in NZ.

I bought my '98 RS4 with 113,000 km for NZ$13,000. Which was quite a good deal.

[funkymonkey]

what I mean is, due to the lack of a domestic production market in NZ, cars that we regard as special imports in Australia aren't that special in NZ. Stageas here are rare and if you own one, you treat it like a newborn child. In NZ a stagea is just another station wagon, like the Mitsubishi Legnum and the Toyota Caldina etc. As such, its usually put through the same sort of everyday life that an aussie would put a Holden Commodore wagon through. There are the good examples around, and ones owned by enthusiasts, but still, it'd work out much cheaper to import one from Japan, than from NZ, as the same impot laws apply regardless of source.

The only way you can get a personal import into australia from NZ and "dodgy one in" is by providing paperwork/evidence that you are permanently moving here. The loophole was exploited a while ago, and DOTARS clamped down on imports through NZ as a result. So if your friend already lives here, he cn't bring one into the country and if he's just a visitor, then he's not eligible.