jennifer rose
Jan 4, 2004, 5:51 PM
Post #4 of 5
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Re: [Georgia] Duty for household goods without menaje
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1. Read (oh, it's somewhere on this site and you know where to look) what's allowed duty-free as part of your personal equipaje. Clothing, books, 20 CDs, musical instrument, that kind of thing.
2. Now, prepare a manifest, showing the description of the rest of your goods, in Spanish, showing the fair market value of each. As Esteban pointed out, garage sale value isn't a bad indicator. The customs officals weren't born yesterday, and they know what things cost. (Several years ago, a friend was bringing in a new desktop computer, and he unsuccessfully argued that the computer's value should be reduced by the $50 rebate he would be receiving. The customs officials didn't buy that argument. At some points of entry, the customs officials have a manual reflecting the values of merchandise. One time, about a decade ago, they insisted that a Pier 1 Indian coffee table I'd had since college was really worth $25 instead of the $6 I'd paid for it in 1968 and that the ragged old sheets I had in the Suburban hiding some live plants were worth $.50 each. I didn't argue the point. It can frequently pay to keep your mouth shut.)
3. (Total of #2) - (franquicia times the number of people traveling with you) = amount subject to tax.
The tax rate should be 17%, with some exceptions. See http://www.aduanas.sat.gob.mx/ for details.
Yet another group of friends, Mexicans, drove in two Suburbans a year or so ago to go shopping in San Antonio. And shop they did. As they reached Laredo, the air conditioning in one of the Suburbans quit, so the passengers all piled into the Suburban with the functioning air conditioning, leaving the other Suburban full of loot with a single driver. The passenger-filled Suburban merrily drove on through the aduana, basking in the air conditioning, while -- you guessed it -- the lone driver of the other vehicle got stuck with paying an arm and leg of what would've passed duty-free. The aduanero just didn't buy his cuenta that 80% of the loot belonged to the Suburban which was now heading down the highway.
Yet another couple blithely handed over all of the receipts from about $1,000 worth of purchases made in Laredo. Nothing particularly important, just clothing and kids' toys. They had made no attempt to remove price tags and re-arrange their purchases, leaving everything in the back of their car just as it had appeared when they'd left Mall del Norte. They found themselves hit with a tax bill on $800 worth of merchandise.
(This post was edited by jennifer rose on Jan 4, 2004, 6:02 PM)
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