AW: Custom declaration

[Horst Luening]

Hello,

> Furthermore, how stupid is it if "La Maison du Whisky" is shipping lava
lamps?

typically 'sensitive' material is not shipped under the real name of the
sender. Most often a private name of the proprietor or a manager is used. I
once ordered an XXX article from a stock listed company here in Germany
(Beate Uhse). The company was founded shortly after the war from a pilot
lady. She died a few years ago. She was the pioneer in sending sensitive
material across Germany. Even the money transfer is handled by a 'noname'
sub company. Well with over a million parcels in Germany these names are
well known by the delivery driver and bank officers ... but people think
they are 'noname'.

> None of these rather childish "tricks" fools any customs officer. They
have
> other means of determining what's inside a parcel.

They might not fool customs officers but lazy or bored officers will let the
parcels pass.
In Sweden in particular they have giant x-ray machines for looking into the
parcels. But after the EC court decision Sweden lets these parcels pass in
general. And I heared that these parcels had - once detected - to be
returned in former times.

But there are more dark clouds on the horizon. There is a ban on sending
bigger volumes of cigarettes from the 'cheap' countries like Portugal to
Germany and the UK. Because taxes do not lie in the authority of the EC - in
contrast each state is responsible by its own - the sendings of alc.
beverages across borders will be stopped more and more by all countries. The
officials know the sender adresses and beside a very few small shops all
bigger ones will be scanned. What will happen? Each shop has to fill out
export forms and the taxes will be transferred between states. This will
cause a lot of red tape work and sendings across borders will become more
expensive as they are already today.

Regards,
Horst

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