You wouldn't think that importing something here would still be such a pain in the rear, but it still is.
Here's Jorge Lanata's account of buying a lighter on the Internet. The mind boggles, quite frankly.
"I'm going to tell you a story," journalist Jorge Lanata said today during his radio show in Miter. He felt like a "jerk" and decided to explain to his listeners why.
"It occurs to me, by mistake and because I am an idiot, to buy a lighter online. The procedure was normal, until at one point they tell me that I need an importer," said the journalist.
"It seemed strange to me. And I say well, let the customs broker come. I send it to the dispatcher, who are friends with whom I sometimes buy paintings outside," he said.
"But listen to this because it is incredible: I get a letter in which they tell me that I have to do a paperwork at the Ministry of Industry, where I have to declare that the lighter is for personal use. It is seen that I was at risk of closing the factory of lighters, "he added wryly.
"Jorge, you have to understand that there are lighters for personal and industrial use," said Marcelo Longobardi , with whom Lanata passes his program.
"But who the fuck is the Secretary of Industry? No one knows who he is and asks me for the form. Then one day I told part of this on air and, of course, terrible quilombo was put together. They called us from all the industry lines and We explained to them what the problem was. Meanwhile, my lighter was still there, at Customs, "Lanata replied.
"Dear Grasso [by Fernando Grasso, Secretary of Industry], here Lanata greets you. You asked me to do a procedure to see if the lighter was going to be used by me or another. Grasso, what do you have in your head? a lighter from the year 20 'will not be used by all of Argentina, I will use it, "he added.
"Today I get the ballot of what I have to pay. Listen to the ballot. Suppose the lighter is worth 100 pesos. The ballot that comes to me says that I have to pay $ 97 of taxes."
"What do they charge me? Statistical rate, import duty, which is fine. Besides VAT, earnings, and one that is 'internal taxes' that do not clarify what the fuck it will be and that is like 40% of the 97 pesos of taxes. That, plus the 500 mangoes that my dispatching friends charge me, which is what they are in. How can it be that the Argentine State for a thing of $ 100, charges $ 97 of taxes? 2, Lanata said indignantly.
"Jorge, but what do you want to advise the Argentine people?", Asked the journalist his radio companions.
And Lanata replied: "Let them smuggle. I ask people to start smuggling things from now on and that's it. I have a friend who brings smuggling stuff, I'm not going to give the name, an informal importer. I'm going to ask to my friend, who brings an elephant through Customs and nobody tells him anything. I have asked him for several elephants that I have in a fifth in the province of Buenos Aires. Then I am going to ask my friend who comes from every month of New York to bring me 64 lighters. I'm going to send them to the Secretary of Industry at home, I don't remember what his name is. Ah yes, Grasso! Grasso: wait, you'll get 63 lighters by mail. "
"They are all motherfuckers," Lanata concluded. "I am going to return the lighter and I will lose the twine that I paid for it. There is no possibility that I will beat this sleeve of useless 97 mangoes out of 100, because it is a choreo
Full article here and can be read in English on Chrome
https://www.lanacion.com.ar/politica/jorge-lanata-nid2283104
