TOR list of good requirements

Hi there. We are relocating back to the UK from the US. Dual citizen, so that makes some things simpler. My question is, on the TOR, I have the movers' packing list which is mostly along the lines of "x boxes of books" and "y boxes of kitchen items". We only have a few things that weren't in boxes. Will this be enough for the TOR itemization, or do I need to redo it in more detail with an attempt to provide some more detail?

Thanks so much for any advice.

As a US citizen, you have to provide an estimate of the value of goods you are moving to the US government (non-citizens don't, not sure about green card holders). This is separate to the ToR, but I used by ToR spreadsheet to calculate it.

I was told (by the moving company) that I could use the packing list for ToR purposes, but since I needed to estimate the value of goods for the US export estimate, I went a bit further. I had 50+ crates of books, so I counted the number of books in 3 typical crates, multiplied it out and listed 'books - 1,350 (approx)' on the ToR.

I had boxes filled with knickknacks I had no idea how to describe. I put those down as 'Decorative display items (novelties, toys, optical illusions, etc)   75   approx' for that.

Similarly, I had an entry for 'Kitchen goods (ice trays, timers, fridge magnets etc. No cutlery)   25   approx'

When I could be specific, I was ('Large Wooden Dinosaur   1').

I shipped 156 boxes. My ToR had 108 entries.

I submitted by ToR application March 9th (2022) and it was granted March 24th.

Thank you. My packers' list does contain descriptions of the box contents, but no numbers beyond how many boxes there are. Eg 8 boxes of kitchenware. Another mover's site says you can use the amount of insurance coverage as the value (I took umbrella insurance at $12 a pound). I don't know if this is ok or not. My shipper also tells me that in his experience the packing list I have has always worked for TOR.

As a US citizen, you have to provide an estimate of the value of goods you are moving to the US government (non-citizens don't, not sure about green card holders).

I searched the US CBP site and never found any such requirement (no I haven't moved without reporting). Can you provide a source?

ETA: I found plenty of sources about importing goods TO the US, but not anything about US citizens moving FROM the US.

I searched the US CBP site and never found any such requirement (no I haven't moved without reporting). Can you provide a source?

It's a requirement from the Foreign Trade Division of the US Census Bureau rather than Customs & Border Protection. Not, as I can attest, that helps any with the internet searches. They use it for producing balance of trade statistics rather than tax purposes.

When a US Citizen ships more than $2,500 of household goods it must be declared through the Automated Commercial Environment (AES) system (source: https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/regulations/ftrfaqs.pdf, page 9, first question under 'Household Goods'). While run by CBP, AES is also used by the Census Bureau.

The export is recorded by creating an Electronic Export Information (EEI) in AES. This requires (a) access to AES, and (b) an EIN. Getting access to AES is non-trivial, so the movers will create the EEI for you, but they want you to apply for the EIN yourself (not sure why).

I couldn't find an example of the EEI/AES UI online, so I can't prove the EII record requires an exact figure for the value of the household goods you are shipping. However, I can't see anything but an exact dollar amount being useful for calculating balance of trade statistics (a 'Are you exporting more than $2,500?' checkbox would not suffice for example). FedEx (etc)'s EEI forms are online and they require exact dollar amounts, but those obviously aren't intended for folk moving abroad shipping household goods.

Hope that helps. I don't know why the mover can't just reuse the insured value and require you to enter a sperate value, but I imagine it's because everyone knows the default insurance ($0.60 per pound in my case) is completely unrealistic :-).