Customs duties. . .paying ransom for your gear

[furcafe]

Actually, smuggling is a Customs offense that applies to anyone who knowingly tries to sneaks something into the U.S. that is prohibited from importation, without paying duty, without proper documentation, etc. Thus, it's not restricted to Cuban merchandise. The Cuban embargo penalties you refer to are separate from smuggling & apply to U.S. persons who buy, sell, trade, or otherwise engage in transactions w/Cuba.

http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/travel/alerts/restricted/cuban_cigars.xml

Thus, someone who sneaks Cuban cigars into the U.S. is liable for both smuggling & violating the embargo, which is adminstered by the Office of Foreign Assets Control, not CBP.

Yes, it's smuggling if you're an American citizen. On the books, the civil penalty for violating the embargo is a fine of no more than $55,000 per count; criminal prosecution calls for penalties of up to 10 years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines, or both. If it's just one box, it's my understanding that they just confiscate it.

R.J.

 

[RJBender]

I can't find a schedule for column 3 countries. Now that I've thought about it more, the tariff was higher than 30%. It may have been 50-100% during the cold war. 😕

R.J.

 

[RJBender]

Actually, smuggling is a Customs offense that applies to anyone who knowingly tries to sneaks something into the U.S. that is prohibited from importation, without paying duty, without proper documentation, etc. Thus, it's not restricted to Cuban merchandise. The Cuban embargo penalties you refer to are separate from smuggling & apply to U.S. persons who buy, sell, trade, or otherwise engage in transactions w/Cuba.

http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/travel/alerts/restricted/cuban_cigars.xml

Thus, someone who sneaks Cuban cigars into the U.S. is liable for both smuggling & violating the embargo, which is adminstered by the Office of Foreign Assets Control, not CBP.

There is an exception.

Visitors returning from a licensed visit to Cuba can bring Cuban cigars into the United States, provided the cigars are for personal use (not resale) and that their value does not exceed $100.

http://www.ehow.com/how_110840_purchase-cuban-cigars.html

I couldn't get a licensed visit to Cuba but someone visiting family in Cuba could.

R.J.

 

[ch1]

It may have been 50-100% during the cold war. 😕

R.J.

Ah yes, those were the days....

Remember the Grain Embargo? Talk about shooting yourself in the trade foot! :bang:

 

[RJBender]

Ah yes, those were the days....

Remember the Grain Embargo? Talk about shooting yourself in the trade foot! :bang:

George,

Yes, that was in 1980. When the embargo didn't work, the US started supporting bin Laden and his Afghan Mujahideen.... freedom fighters according to Ronald Reagan. Historians will have a tough job sorting all this out 20 years from now. Will they whitewash history or attempt to analyze what went wrong?

R.J.

 

[ch1]

George,

Yes, that was in 1980. When the embargo didn't work, the US started supporting bin Laden and his Afghan Mujahideen.... freedom fighters according to Ronald Reagan. Historians will have a tough job sorting all this out 20 years from now. Will they whitewash history or attempt to analyze what went wrong?

R.J.

Hmmmm....now where did I put that paintbrush! 😀

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

USA, Land of the Free, and you guys can't go to Cuba?

 

[RJBender]

Hmmmm....now where did I put that paintbrush! 😀

I can imagine what an index in a high school history book will look like 20 years from now:

freedom fighters
freedom fries

I have a hunch that the paintbrush will be used, George.

R.J.

 

[bmattock]

USA, Land of the Free, and you guys can't go to Cuba?

We can go to Cuba. We can't spend money in Cuba, except under special circumstances. This is due to an economic embargo. If US citizens go to Cuba and do not have permission, it is presumed that we 'spent money' there and we are subject to prosecution - not for 'going to Cuba' but for violating the economic embargo.

We are the "Land of the Free." We have laws, like anywhere, and if we violate them, we risk prosecution. The Economic Embargo can be lifted - if the political will to do so is there. At the moment, it is not.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[sf]

OK - Customs DID in fact grab my lens on the way in, and they were nice enough to attach a little note telling me how much I owed them for their services : $40. OK. Could have been worse. But that ticks me off anyway.

So . . they can and do tax consumers on imports of used items for personal use.

goodie goodie.

oh, and I got it this morning. Pretty lens.

 

[John Camp]

George,

Yes, that was in 1980. When the embargo didn't work, the US started supporting bin Laden and his Afghan Mujahideen.... freedom fighters according to Ronald Reagan. Historians will have a tough job sorting all this out 20 years from now. Will they whitewash history or attempt to analyze what went wrong?

R.J.

Ronald Reagan is far down my list of favorite Presidents, perhaps because I'm a Democrat, but to be fair, he didn't come into office until 1981; I think many of the the Afghani freedom fighters were just that, but the fight got hijacked by the Taliban, who were the best-disciplined faction...sort of like the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution. Bush the Second (known in my family as Il Deuce, and who's even further down the list) often gets blamed for the dot-com stock market crash, but the market turned down in March (I believe) of 2000, almost a year before he came into office.

Unpopularity seems to spread stains backward...

George Bush, by the way, is a devoted M3 Leica user, especially of pre-war lenses, and once had a solo street photography show in Dallas that focused on the lives of wildcat oil-rig workers.

JC

(Just kidding about the Leica/street photography thing.)

 

[jan normandale]

OK - Customs DID in fact grab my lens on the way in, and they were nice enough to attach a little note telling me how much I owed them for their services : $40. OK. Could have been worse. But that ticks me off anyway.

So . . they can and do tax consumers on imports of used items for personal use.

goodie goodie.

oh, and I got it this morning. Pretty lens.

FWIW , I always get the appropriate Tariff Guide number from the act. Then email a copy of the exact section and ask the retailer to print it and include that information in the packing declaration. This speeds delivery and ensures you and the Duties section of your government that the duty is calculated correctly. For 20 minutes of reading you get to save time and perhaps some money.

 

[Doug]

George I'm flabbergasted that you were charged anything by Customs. Camera gear is "supposed" to be duty-free. When recently my big Pentax was on its way from Hong Kong I tracked its progress... It of course did come through US Customs, but with no charges. About 20 hours after scanning at Customs it was delivered here. Here's an excerpt of the tracking info:

ONTARIO, CA, US 03/28/2006 3:13 P.M. REGISTERED WITH CLEARING AGENCY; SHIPMENT SUBMITTED TO CLEARING AGENCY
CHEK LAP KOK, HK 03/28/2006 8:37 P.M. EXPORT SCAN

Strangely enough, it APPEARS to have come into Ontario California some 5 hours BEFORE it left Hong Kong! Time travel is so convenient.

About 5 years ago we bought a carpet custom-made in Morocco and arranged for it to be shipped when done. The shipping company failed to notify us of the eventual arrival, until the office gal tried "one more time" before disposing of it as abandoned goods. We went over to Seattle to pick it up, but had to have it cleared by Customs before it was released. My recollection is that there was no import duties, though perhaps a processing fee, and of course storage charges.

 

[furcafe]

Per Bill's posts, camera gear is not necessarily supposed to be duty-free depending on how its classifed under the Harmonized Tariff Schedule. CBP may let it slide most of the time, but that doesn't mean they're not supposed to be collecting duty on camera equipment.

1 reason why it may appear to be duty-free is that the shipping company may take care of it & include it in the cost of shipping.

George I'm flabbergasted that you were charged anything by Customs. Camera gear is "supposed" to be duty-free.

 

[furcafe]

Perhaps the times listed were local times?

About 20 hours after scanning at Customs it was delivered here. Here's an excerpt of the tracking info:

ONTARIO, CA, US 03/28/2006 3:13 P.M. REGISTERED WITH CLEARING AGENCY; SHIPMENT SUBMITTED TO CLEARING AGENCY
CHEK LAP KOK, HK 03/28/2006 8:37 P.M. EXPORT SCAN

Strangely enough, it APPEARS to have come into Ontario California some 5 hours BEFORE it left Hong Kong! Time travel is so convenient.

 

[jan normandale]

did you take into account the flight was going west to east and the international date line?

 

[Doug]

Undoubtedly local times, with the international date line in-between. But it sure looks odd. VERY fast shipment. 😀

 

[smudwhisk]

As I suspect the price of the 100mm RF645 lens was somewhat more than the $56 I paid for a 150mm ETR series lens from KEH, think yourself lucky I have a bill on its way (when Fedex issue it with the correct name on) for £15 (about $24) for importing it into the UK. If it wasn't the fact that they still cost more on ebay, I wouldn't have bothered. My only gripe really is that I asked KEH to send it normal airmail in the hope it would sneak through, but they were rather reluctant and wanted to charge me an additional $10 postage - I suspect for what they referred to as the added work involved taking it to the post office. This is all very well but they didn't on this occasion fill out the forms correctly for FEDEX and the original invoice for the customs duty was issued against my employer (as had it delivered to work) who are an international company - which has meant me having to get the invoice changed. I think next time I'm going to insist they do send it airmail! I think its generally been worked out that we pay about 25% or thereabouts customs duty on anything over $30!

OK - Customs DID in fact grab my lens on the way in, and they were nice enough to attach a little note telling me how much I owed them for their services : $40. OK. Could have been worse. But that ticks me off anyway.

So . . they can and do tax consumers on imports of used items for personal use.

goodie goodie.

oh, and I got it this morning. Pretty lens.