You can google for instructions on how to self clear an item with UPS. It will be a major headache, but if it is possible it should help you resolve importing the item without fees and possibly without having to pay the taxes up front before applying to have them refunded.
UPS charges both a "brokerage" fee, and the taxes. If they clear it, you will have no way to get the brokerage fee back. Brokerage fees are quite expensive. The government will only refund you the tax portion since the brokerage fee is a payment for services by UPS, not actual taxes. You will not be charged a brokerage fee if you clear the item yourself.
In terms of an MC098 suspicious buyer, they do not have buyer protection since their account was deleted by eBay. If the item was already sent, they do not have any recourse through eBay. Which means, reversing the shipment may not have served any purpose since you were already paid. They might be able to go through Paypal or their credit card. If you are on managed payments, I assume eBay would still eat the chargeback if you met your obligations for seller protection (Tracking, shipped to the correct address, signature confirmation if required). Before managed payments, you had to worry about dealing directly with a possible Paypal case, but now all cases go directly through eBay even if they are opened else where.
You'd have to clarify the above with eBay. If you are covered in the event of a chargeback, it doesn't make sense to me to go through the time, hassle, and additional cost of recovering the item. It would be a rare case where the seller protection that you pay for (partly) through your fees comes in handy. I am assuming that if you're recovering the item you're refunding the original payment or somehow the original payment was already refunded.
