The gift of a container of wheelchairs is not "Free".

Wheelchair Foundation pays for the wheelchairs and their transport (land and sea) to the delivery address specified by the receiving consignee.

All local receiving organizations must have the ability to process an import tax-exemption for the receipt of charitable goods and pay all port charges and/or customs fees. If a consignee does not have legal status, they may partner with another organization locally that does.

It is important to the Wheelchair Foundation that consignees continue to be responsible for these costs. If the import tax-exemption is not processed on time or denied, the wheelchairs will sit in customs accruing storage charges (at the rate of $55 to $120 a day) until the tax exemption is properly process or the decision is made to pay standard import taxes which range from 30% to 200% of the cargo’s value. By having the consignee pay port and customs charges, we create an economic incentive for them To Whom It May Concern: process the import tax exemption in a timely manner.

PORT AND HANDLING CHARGES: range from $500 to $2,500

All containers moving through any port incur the following expenses:

• Container Handling Charges (movement of the container from ship to truck)
• Daily Storage Charges (after an allowance of time which varies by country)
• Private Customs Agent Fees
• Document Processing Fees (mailing/courier fees)
• Government Custom Official Inspection Fees
• Dockage Fee
• Container Cleaning Fee
• Etc.

This list of charges can be very extensive and vary widely from country to country.

Demurrage and Storage Costs caused by delays in customs clearance have cost up to $14,000 or resulted in the confiscation of the wheelchairs, a $21,000 value.

ADDITIONAL CONTRACTUALLY OBLIGATED COSTS: range from $820 to $11,500

Consignees must also agree to comply with the obligations of the Donation Agreement, including:

1. Processing of import tax exemption: 20 to 80 man-hours and minor fees ($100 to $1,000)
2. Identifying the recipients of the wheelchairs: time, telephone calls, announcements, organization efforts ($500 - $4,000)
3. Organizing a ceremonial distribution of at least 25 wheelchairs in which the donors/WF are recognized and to which local media is invited: ceremony space, refreshments for the recipients, transportation of the recipients to the event site, press releases ($20 - $5,000)
4. Photos of each of the recipients: individually tracking each wheelchair to its recipient, taking the photo, gathering all of the photos and returning them to the WF ($200 - $1,000)
5. Hosting the donors or representatives of the WF: ($0 to $500)

Each consignee commits to undertaking a significant logistics operation and incurring a minimum $1,320 in expenses, which can range up to $14,000 plus possible demurrage costs.