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- Newsgroups: rec.travel
- Path: sparky!uunet!psinntp!coopsol!brentw
- From: brentw@coopsol.com (Brent Williams)
- Subject: Re: Customs (bringing thing out and into the US)
- Message-ID: <1992Nov20.000802.25398@coopsol.com>
- Organization: Cooperative Solutions, Inc.
- References: <1992Nov16.010427.1879@informix.com> <1992Nov16.205318.3988@Happy-Man.com>
- Date: Fri, 20 Nov 92 00:08:02 GMT
- Lines: 31
-
- josh@Happy-Man.com (Joshua_Putnam) writes:
-
- >For larger items, you can register them with Customs in
- >advance so you have gov't-certified proof the items were in
- >the U.S. already. It's free and doesn't take long -- they
- >just note the serial numbers and stamp the form.
-
- The last time I cleared customs with a LOT of computer equipment
- (I was doing demos at a trade show) they explained to me that
- this is not 100% accurate. They said that the pre-declaration that
- you fill out is only a precursor to a full customs declaration.
- In other words, if I am bringing in hugely expensive things, they
- may ask for duties anyway, until I can prove myself innocent.
- They mentioned a $10,000 limit for computer equipment. I suspect that
- they are trying to guard against the following case: guy pre-declares
- "8 carat diamond ring" which is actually a cubic zirconium. Then he
- goes to Switzerland, buys an 8-carat real diamond, swaps the stone,
- then tries to get back through customs.
-
- Anyway, this is unlikely to apply to the original guy's question about
- going through customs with a Walkman, but it may apply to business
- travelers carrying equipment through for tradeshows.
-
-
- -brent
-
- --
- Brent Williams/Cooperative Solutions Inc., San Jose CA (408) 377-0300
- brentw@coopsol.com
- Cooperative Solutions makes Ellipse, a development environment for
- industrial strength graphical client/server business applications.
-