Much to her suprise...Sophie received a package from Grandma Sugar and Papa for her birthday. What was inside the package was something akin to baseball and cracker jacks, s'mores by a campfire, or apple pie and ice cream...yep thats right...an American Girl doll for an American Girl!!!
She was sooo excited and carried her around where ever she went that day and the days that have followed. She is most impressed by the purse with coins and necklace that came with her doll, not too mention the long blond hair. She wondered, "Oh my gosh mom, that is exactly the one I wanted! How did grandma know?"
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We all learned a valuable...and I do mean valuable lesson with this present...if you have a loved one in Denmark and you would like to send them a gift...do NOT include the original online shipping statement if it does not include taxes! :) The purchase of the doll had one fee, the mailing of said doll another, and the collection from the post office yet another. (When you order items online many items are shipped without the accrual of tax - the Danish postal system requires that taxes are paid on items shipped regardless of where they are paid. If there are no taxes paid documented...Danish taxes are applied) So to give a ballpark figure...the retrieval of Sophie's doll was over $50 American dollars.
3 comments:
I learned the SAME lesson with an amazon shipment right after I moved here!! The tax that I did not pay in the US was more in DK than the stuff in the box was worth!! Guess we all have to experience it at least once!
Hi... Don't mind me... just roaming through your blog. :)
I had to say Hi, and that yes, we paid those lovely taxes... just once though. :)
I had a friend who had her "shipper" lie about the contents of her package. DK customs actually checked her package, found out there was not "Office Supplies" in it, and held it in Copenhagen until she could "prove" how much all her new Gymboree clothes were worth and pay the taxes on it. HA!! FUN TIMES!!
I'm a roamer too!
We've been fairly lucky so far, and most of our packages from the US don't get the extra charges on top..we keep slipping through the hoop.
I've been unable to buy stuff from the states once or twice because the seller objects to the extra tax charges that could be applied, and I've had other sellers who volunteer to pay half of the extra taxes if our package gets 'caught'.
Either way it doesn't encourage free enterprise does it?
I spoke to DK customs quite a bit when I first came here, and got remarkably candid people in that office telling me how it works, how they choose certain packages to make a point with. I found out a few loopholes, i.e: how to get stuff here without being fleeced financially, but it's all borderline smuggling, and not something I would care to admit to doing.
I heard of someone who got charged tax on an old hand knitted sweater that had been left behind in the states and kindly sent on by her grandmother to arrive in Dk to be valued and charged on!!
Repeat: they will tax everything they can.
I advise people not to send gifts from the states for birthdays as the customs people I spoke to all those years ago told me that they regularly rip open carefully gift wrapped packages and charge on their value. It's utterly mean.
Unless you are really lucky, as we have been with goods ordered from abroad, the only almost fail safe way of getting your stuff over is to get visiting friends and family to stuff their suitcases with it and pass it off as their own: that means NO TAGS!!! and certainly no receipts. Every day this is happening, so often that the customs will never be able to keep up with it, they haven't got the manpower.
The problem with high taxes is how ridiculous the measures are to keep them paid.
I'd rather no welfare state and lower taxes, which would mean we could all afford to take care of ourselves and choose from a competitive schooling and health care system. But then I am a romantic..LOL.
*wipes tears of pain from eyes thinking about the 50 dollar tax charge on a doll*
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