[HansTWN]

What Poppaea may not realize is that customs officials in many countries are always looking for opportunities to make some extra cash. And if you carry something shiny and new it usually warrants an invitation to the back room for further discussions, along the lines of "do you want to pay full tax and penalty (if you didn't declare it) or make a special contribution to my retirement fund?".

Just some advice in case one of you ever gets into that situation. Don't give in too easily, you have a powerful argument in your favor. Just the threat of saying "ok, I will pay the tax" usually gets the size of the required contribution way down, because if you pay the official tax the customs officer gets nothing.

Something like that, of course, is unthinkable in Germany. They don't even bother looking, unless you seem suspicious. German officialdom is quite a different breed. I remember how hard I laughed when a German friend of mine told me he walked into the tax office, started a verbal fight with his case handler and said "how dare you talk this way to your employer?". The taxman's face turned red with anger, but my friend actually got his additional refund approve in the end. But such an action must seem suicidal in many places.