Peter wrote:
It is hard to exceeding the personal allowances in GA, due to weight or volume.
Limits for liquor between Poland and Germany is 10l and for cigarettes is 800. Both is easy to exceed with a GA airplane in terms of volume and weight.
As long as we have different taxation in different countries for theses kind of goods, customs is necessary. Without it, you would always have an unfair taxation competition.
And yes, people will always either complain about “so much of our money being put into controlling compliance with the rules” or “they don’t control enough anyways, so the rule is pointless”. Some even complain about both at the same time …
1) cash – very easy to hide 10K euros (the limit without customs declaration)
2) jewellery – very ease to hide
3) Drugs and medication
4) counterfeit – which is a major task of customs, think watches, wallets, handbags etc…
I can go on. Of course there is value in customs, what’s the use of having customs borders if you are not going to enforce them?
customs is necessary. Without it, you would always have an unfair taxation competition.
What is “unfair” about tax competition between national and regional governments?
In western society we generally agree that competition between wealth producers is good. So why should governments not benefit by competing to harvest and diminish their citizens’ wealth as sparingly as possible?
Jacko wrote:
What is “unfair” about tax competition between national and regional governments?
There is nothing wrong in general – but as in private market competition you need to make sure that you can not pick the price from producer a and the good from producer b (i.e. you can not pay the price for a Lada and take the Porsche). In private company competition this is ensured by property rights).
Very same in the competition of countries: Competition does only work if you can not pick the taxes in one country and the benefits in another one.
Malibuflyer wrote:
Very same in the competition of countries: Competition does only work if you can not pick the taxes in one country and the benefits in another one.
Unfortunately, that is how it works at the moment – you are a citizen of one country, working and paying taxes in another one, but you cannot use all the benefits even if you lived here all your life (unless you claim that country’s citizenship).
I’ve seen advertising for US states, on billboards in other states. 
To paraphrase: “Tired of nonsense and waste here? Come live in our state, we do things better”
US states certainly do compete, by Constitutional design. That’s why the Federal Government is constrained to a limited role, why states tax their residents independently, and why you don’t have to apply to anybody to move your residence from one state to another.
Malibuflyer wrote:
Very same in the competition of countries: Competition does only work if you can not pick the taxes in one country and the benefits in another one.
arj1 wrote:
Unfortunately, that is how it works at the moment – you are a citizen of one country, working and paying taxes in another one, but you cannot use all the benefits even if you lived here all your life (unless you claim that country’s citizenship).
And it doesnt even work if you have lived in the country for ages either… “The EU” was supposed to sort all this out, but in almost 20 years or working and living in various places in Europe it is still a complete mess.
