In a tiny little addition, customs duty has been introduced on Digital Still Image Cameras.
Till last year, all digital still cameras were not charged duty. But now a note in the customs changes (under “85.7”) says that:
Basic customs duty of 10% is being imposed on Digital Cameras which are capable of recording video with minimum resolution of 800 x 600 pixels, at minimum 23 frames per second, for at least 30 minutes in a single sequence using the maximum storage (including expanded) capacity.
This, I think applies to most still cameras today (heck, it applies to most decent phones nowadays). Only cameras that are restricted to the older VGA video levels of 640×480 or 320×200 will continue to stay exempt; even the newer VGA levels of 800×600 (which isn’t even HD) will get the 10% duty.
This is part of the Budget2012 series. Instead of a large post, I’m doing one post per piece. Easier to search!
