Not every country charges a tax at the border that you can claim back
India charges IGST on the assessable value and again on the duty. The EU, the UK, the UAE and Singapore charge VAT or GST on CIF plus duty. The United States charges nothing of the kind at the border at all. One spreadsheet shape cannot be right in all three places.
Three shapes, not three rates
It is tempting to think country differences are just different percentages in the same formula. They are not. The base the tax is charged on differs, and in one case the tax does not exist at the border at all.
India charges IGST on the assessable value and on the duty aggregate — two lines, one base built on the other. The EU, the UK, the UAE and Singapore charge their VAT or GST on customs value plus duty, as a single line. The United States charges federal duty and entry fees and stops there: sales tax in America is a state retail tax, charged when the goods are eventually sold, not when they cross the border.
The same consignment, three destinations
Customs value 100,000 in the destination's own currency, duty at 5% in each case, importer registered and able to reclaim.
| Customs value | 100,000 |
| Duty at 5% — nobody gets this back | 5,000 |
| India — IGST 18% on value plus duty | 18,900, reclaimed |
| Germany — import VAT 19% on value plus duty | 19,950, reclaimed |
| United States — nothing at the border | 0 |
| What the goods actually cost you, all three | 105,000 |
The reclaimable tax washes out in all three columns. The duty never does. That is the whole reason the two belong on different lines of a costing sheet, and it is the reason the bottom row is the same in all three places while the reclaimable rows run from nothing at all to nearly 20,000.
Where an India-shaped sheet goes wrong abroad
Two failure modes, in opposite directions. Pointed at the United States, it invents a ~19% import tax line that does not exist, and you quote a landed cost high enough to lose the order to someone whose arithmetic was right. Pointed at the EU, it applies India's two-step base and overstates the VAT — the same mistake, smaller, and harder to notice.
And where the reclaimable tax still matters
Reclaimable is not free. You fund it at the port and get it back when the return is filed, which on a large consignment is a real hole in your working capital for weeks. It belongs in your cash-flow plan even though it does not belong in your selling price. Those are two different documents, and confusing them is the second most expensive mistake on this page.