Complaining of bureaucracy is a national sport. Laws, regulations, ordinances and departments to follow a scheme that defies logic and common sense. The Brazilian state is large in proportion to the enormous size of the country. So it's natural that some sort of weirdness occurs.
Consider the Muambator, for example, a service that fills in some gaps in the (awful and unstable) site of the Post and was inexplicably locked, forcing administrators to implement some workarounds.
All this to tell how I lost £ 5000 for the Brazilian bureaucracy.
A silent hell
For over a year I started an import products from China for Women & Beer Cup. It was not the first time and did legally. The idea was to increase the stock of beer and flash drives add a new product, different, with the elegant shape of a bottle opener.
So here I chose a program created by the government to allow importation of small-scale commercial products: the Easy Import. Theoretically it is all very beautiful. The company pays a fixed amount for the ease, it has some tax breaks that occur in the import policy (for example, pays a fixed rate of import), but there is so much bureaucracy. "Perfect, I thought.
Several products of Women, Beer & Football came to Brazil in this way. Paying tax properly through the Easy Import and popping all the time imaginable. Note that most of these imports are sold out now because almost one year that I can no longer import this way.
The problems begin
The goods left China in mid-July (last year). Generally, a delivery delay for Brazil to 4 weeks by air to reach the destination. It is always easy as the delays, they say that the orders off this means have lowest priority (ie, are always at the end of the queue), I am not worried much about the fact that in July the goods have not yet been cleared through customs .
A few days later, more precisely in August 5th, I received the following message from the Post Office, which is the company (ir) responsible for clearing:
In response to Request for Information 6902144, reported that the object EE057830977CN is being held at the Customs Inspection in Brazil for content verification and other procedures that Federal agents believe is necessary. We have to inform you that all goods entering or leaving a country are subject to inspection by the government officials of Customs. (...) These agents have legal authorization to open a parcel and check the contents, releasing it for delivery to the addressee, return it to sender, grasping it or reject it, without the possibility of intervention by postmasters.
That is, the order has been retained by Customs.
On August 30, another message:
(...) We clarify that the object EE057830977CN is being held in a special operation of the Internal Revenue Service of Brazil. In this operation, federal agents are conducting thorough inspections of the contents of postal cargo import.
September passed without giving news of the load.
Behold, on October 5, I get this message:
In response to its Request for Information No. 6902144, reported that its object was seized EE057830977CN. Please wait for the end of seizure. The IRS will contact you.
Of course, you will contact me. After all, this is not about drugs or pirated DVDs or gadgets xinglings last generation. Further, the process includes paying the tax due.
On October 26, the tracking system Post said the following:
Latest news payload: a boss stopped PF
It is clear that the IRS did not contact me nor I could speak to them. The record of them is ridiculously short, the contact telephone numbers are never seen and I would need to physically go to an address in St. Paul to find out who to contact in person.
I called the press office, a typical move of journalists, and talked with several staff attentive and kind. However, I could never get anywhere near the industry responsible for seizure-ass. Meanwhile, our friend Kafka laughed in my face like a boss of Streets of Rage.
Falling into the black hole of the customs
In parallel, talked to some brokers ninjas. One said he searched the aisles of the Guarulhos airport, where the cargo was theoretically. The answer was:
The information we had was that their goods fell in the process of investigation of special operation, in the identification of goods from China, with unregistered trademarks.
We call any phone number or address Revenues us to go, but the Post did not, then opened a message with this request to the IRS. Having reply, send to your e-mail.
Is there really nothing we can do without the IRS to send you any notification. Can not even know in which room is the load, and as you know, the rule of SP has many precincts of Revenue.
Must repeat that I never received anything nadica? Several times I contacted the post office due to a charge or another. In this case, nothing, null, void, niente. And detail, such a trademark is the trademark of my company, the store MCF.
To complicate matters, the company responsible for clearing, who normally would be required to pursue this type of service, attended only by 0800. Then in November 11 I get this message Post:
Confirming previous answer, your order is no longer in the Post Office because it was permanently revoked by the IRS, and we do not have any contact phone number the same. We clarified that all orders received by mail are passed first to examine the Tax Agents, therefore there was no possibility of any clearance. More information can be obtained only in the ombudsman from the IRS.
Knows what the Ombudsman said the IRS? Copy and paste below:
Contact the Gear / Sao Paulo
phone: 011 - 4313-9895/4313-9897/4313-9898/4341-9943
Some more phones from people who do not attend phones. Must be a special department of Revenue managed by deaf-mutes. Right now, Kafka says, "I can haz cheezburger." And I decided to accept the fact that the Brazilian bureaucracy had taken me £ 5000.
Consider the Muambator, for example, a service that fills in some gaps in the (awful and unstable) site of the Post and was inexplicably locked, forcing administrators to implement some workarounds.
All this to tell how I lost £ 5000 for the Brazilian bureaucracy.
A silent hell
For over a year I started an import products from China for Women & Beer Cup. It was not the first time and did legally. The idea was to increase the stock of beer and flash drives add a new product, different, with the elegant shape of a bottle opener.
So here I chose a program created by the government to allow importation of small-scale commercial products: the Easy Import. Theoretically it is all very beautiful. The company pays a fixed amount for the ease, it has some tax breaks that occur in the import policy (for example, pays a fixed rate of import), but there is so much bureaucracy. "Perfect, I thought.
Several products of Women, Beer & Football came to Brazil in this way. Paying tax properly through the Easy Import and popping all the time imaginable. Note that most of these imports are sold out now because almost one year that I can no longer import this way.
The problems begin
The goods left China in mid-July (last year). Generally, a delivery delay for Brazil to 4 weeks by air to reach the destination. It is always easy as the delays, they say that the orders off this means have lowest priority (ie, are always at the end of the queue), I am not worried much about the fact that in July the goods have not yet been cleared through customs .
A few days later, more precisely in August 5th, I received the following message from the Post Office, which is the company (ir) responsible for clearing:
In response to Request for Information 6902144, reported that the object EE057830977CN is being held at the Customs Inspection in Brazil for content verification and other procedures that Federal agents believe is necessary. We have to inform you that all goods entering or leaving a country are subject to inspection by the government officials of Customs. (...) These agents have legal authorization to open a parcel and check the contents, releasing it for delivery to the addressee, return it to sender, grasping it or reject it, without the possibility of intervention by postmasters.
That is, the order has been retained by Customs.
On August 30, another message:
(...) We clarify that the object EE057830977CN is being held in a special operation of the Internal Revenue Service of Brazil. In this operation, federal agents are conducting thorough inspections of the contents of postal cargo import.
September passed without giving news of the load.
Behold, on October 5, I get this message:
In response to its Request for Information No. 6902144, reported that its object was seized EE057830977CN. Please wait for the end of seizure. The IRS will contact you.
Of course, you will contact me. After all, this is not about drugs or pirated DVDs or gadgets xinglings last generation. Further, the process includes paying the tax due.
On October 26, the tracking system Post said the following:
Latest news payload: a boss stopped PF
It is clear that the IRS did not contact me nor I could speak to them. The record of them is ridiculously short, the contact telephone numbers are never seen and I would need to physically go to an address in St. Paul to find out who to contact in person.
I called the press office, a typical move of journalists, and talked with several staff attentive and kind. However, I could never get anywhere near the industry responsible for seizure-ass. Meanwhile, our friend Kafka laughed in my face like a boss of Streets of Rage.
Falling into the black hole of the customs
In parallel, talked to some brokers ninjas. One said he searched the aisles of the Guarulhos airport, where the cargo was theoretically. The answer was:
The information we had was that their goods fell in the process of investigation of special operation, in the identification of goods from China, with unregistered trademarks.
We call any phone number or address Revenues us to go, but the Post did not, then opened a message with this request to the IRS. Having reply, send to your e-mail.
Is there really nothing we can do without the IRS to send you any notification. Can not even know in which room is the load, and as you know, the rule of SP has many precincts of Revenue.
Must repeat that I never received anything nadica? Several times I contacted the post office due to a charge or another. In this case, nothing, null, void, niente. And detail, such a trademark is the trademark of my company, the store MCF.
To complicate matters, the company responsible for clearing, who normally would be required to pursue this type of service, attended only by 0800. Then in November 11 I get this message Post:
Confirming previous answer, your order is no longer in the Post Office because it was permanently revoked by the IRS, and we do not have any contact phone number the same. We clarified that all orders received by mail are passed first to examine the Tax Agents, therefore there was no possibility of any clearance. More information can be obtained only in the ombudsman from the IRS.
Knows what the Ombudsman said the IRS? Copy and paste below:
Contact the Gear / Sao Paulo
phone: 011 - 4313-9895/4313-9897/4313-9898/4341-9943
Some more phones from people who do not attend phones. Must be a special department of Revenue managed by deaf-mutes. Right now, Kafka says, "I can haz cheezburger." And I decided to accept the fact that the Brazilian bureaucracy had taken me £ 5000.
