I won’t disagree with that - $600 would sting 
Or what if someone brought a ten thousand dollar camera on vacation with them? How about women who bring their expensive jewelry. I’m sure guys bring their expensive Roex watches when they go to Cancun,. They thought I was an easy target little did they know I’m not a sucker.
funny to see the look on their faces when I laughed and said I want giving them anymore money then walked right past them. Wish I had that on video.
Yeah 600 dollars would have crushed me. At the end 100 dollars wasn’t horrible.
You pay import tax on it when you bring it back into the country.
That’s how tax works. It’s the same if you order something in the post - DHL will bill you the import duties on it when it arrives.
The import tax rate in Mexico is 19%, so if you were importing $3000 worth of new audio gear then you owed the government $600.
Well the good news is that they will have it on video, and I assume have all your personal details from your flight booking. If you owe the government $600 in tax then they won’t just forget about it.
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it seems like youre kind of hammering this point for no reason. dudes gonna do what he gonna do, not sure why youre whiteknighting ridiculous tax laws
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Cute.
that is what you are doing. import taxes make sense in certain scenarios, not “we need a piece of literally every single thing that is worth more than a thousand dollars”
No, I am explaining what import tax is and clarifying that it’s not the same as extortion. I even said he can do what he wants
That you believe import duties only make sense in ‘certain scenarios’ doesn’t change the reality of what was taking place when this gentleman entered Mexico.
Have a gooden 
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Wow. I didn’t want to believe you but I just read up on it and you’re correct. I had no idea. It does say that you’re allowed to bring one musical instrument tax-free so I don’t know how that would work with a eurorack case. It’s actually one instrument out of many.
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Now that’s an interesting point!
Well the bottom line is if I’m going to purchase OP1 field while I’m here, it’s gonna be a fortune. I guess I’ll just watch YouTube videos of it and be happy with what I got.
The funny thing is that the OP-1 field might not even make them look up the price when going through customs 
it looks like it could be a kid’s toy or something. I’m pretty sure most people outside of the synth world would never guess it to cost $2k or whatever the full price is.
I once had a situation where a customs officer wanted me to pay import tax on my computer. It was back before traveling with computers was so common. The computer was all clean and looked very new, so they thought I was going to bring it in from the US to sell. I was like “are you kidding me? It’s my personal computer and it’s not even new, I’ll boot it up and show you how much of my crap is on the hard drive” so, I did and they eventually let me pass. This wasn’t in Mexico (it was Portugal), but I think the point is the same: import duty should be for resale, not for your own personal items, in my opinion. Maybe those aren’t the rules, but it doesn’t seem fair.
How do touring musicians deal with this? Do customs officers simply realize they have their own gear because they have an artist visa? And if that’s the case, how does it work if someone’s touring in a country where a visa isn’t required from their country of origin?
I almost took my Digitakt to Mexico City a couple months ago, but then decided against it because I didn’t want to get sucked into making music in a hotel room, rather than exploring the city. Now I’m glad I didn’t end up with some import duty drama at the airport.
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I would agree - in the UK we have a personal allowance which is intended for that purpose. It’s a crude but simple way to police that kind of thing. Still means if you want to buy a lot of stuff it doesn’t work out but generally the point of you buying it abroad is that you’re buying that stuff tax free so the worst case scenario is that you end up paying what you would have done anyway.
You missed an opportunity to boot it up and show them your bangers!
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That would have been hilarious! I normally travel with a JBL Xtreme speaker. I’m imagining a big drum and bass party breaking out in the customs line at the CDMX airport
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I had no idea some countries would tax your belongings upon entering a country. That is insane. Where I live you don’t pay taxes on your own stuff if you’ve been over 24 hours abroad. I imagine you’d only have to pay if you obviously come loaded with a bunch of new stuff on their original packaging which looks like you are going to sell it, in which case, yes, totally understand it, but on your own stuff that’s not for sale? Lol fuck that.
This is definitely the case. However, with “$40 on a credit card and $600 in cash”, the cash is not going to find its way into state coffers for sure. Not extortion, but skimming/theft.
Canada will insist on my paying import duties when I bring something in unless I’ve owned it for a year, or I was working abroad and am returning with my possessions. Of course there are (fairly generous) personal exemptions for trips of more than 24 hours.
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Definitely possible - but I wouldn’t neccessarily assume it
Wtf! So going on holiday and bringing say a laptop and a 404 (exactly my plan in a couple of hours ) I could be charged import tax? I never knew this.
No, this is about returning to your place of residence with goods you have acquired abroad.
Ah got it. Half asleep, sorry 
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No that’s not it at all. I just got my residency and I was going down there for the first time with the majority of my studio… So essentially yes they could pull you aside with just a few pieces of gear if they wanted to. Maybe I’m in the system now and when I try to leave I’ll get harassed. Luckily I won’t be going back to the states with any of my Euro for a long time.