Petrus And Tax

[Mattstolz]

Thank you all for your advice.
I just spoke with Fed Ex and they told me they are a customs broker and they take care of that side of things.
I also spoke with an uncle that is a lawyer,he said he doubts that anybody in any Federal Agency is interested in 4 bottles of wine,however better to do it the right way.
I am not in Nice at the moment,however I asked the lady that boxed up the wine to put the correct value 5400 USD on the customs forms.
As a man said above 3 dollars a bottle of the wine is not a lot if anybody wants to charge it.
Best,
Linda

Is that the TOTAL value of 4 bottles of 82 Petrus???

[Linda_Johnson]

Thank you all for your advice.
I just spoke with Fed Ex and they told me they are a customs broker and they take care of that side of things.
I also spoke with an uncle that is a lawyer,he said he doubts that anybody in any Federal Agency is interested in 4 bottles of wine,however better to do it the right way.
I am not in Nice at the moment,however I asked the lady that boxed up the wine to put the correct value 5400 USD on the customs forms.
As a man said above 3 dollars a bottle of the wine is not a lot if anybody wants to charge it.
Best,
Linda

Is that the TOTAL value of 4 bottles of 82 Petrus???

No that is 2 bottles of 1985 and 2 bottles of 1982.
If that man that mentioned Catiwiki prices above is right,hopefully I will do better there.
Not back here until tomorrow,again thanks to all the people that offered me advice.
Best,
Linda

[GregT]

Linda - I didn’t read the entire thread but I used to import wine. When we wanted samples sent over from wineries, they used our importers license. When I wanted to act as a broker, independent of the company, I needed my own. The US laws are very strange. You can carry the wine in. Each individual is allowed to bring in a certain amount of alcohol duty free - not bottles of wine. To figure it out, you’d have to figure how much alcohol is in each bottle, times the number of bottles. That comes out to a few cases. Nobody in customs cares. I’ve brought in many cases of wine with no problem.

To ship it is a completely different story. They’ll let you legally carry in a lot of wine, but to ship a few bottles, they want you to clear customs or they send it back. So you either work with a company that does that sort of thing, or you label it a gift, samples, or juice, all of which it is.

The issue is not about avoiding taxes, etc., it’s about getting through the bizarre legal maze of US alcohol rules. Moreover, even if you ship between states, and even if you are shipping from yourself on vacation in CA to yourself at home in a different state, you may run into trouble with UPS, FedEx, or some of the other shippers that are being hounded by various local authorities.

Taxes are separate but not unrelated. Private individuals are not supposed to sell wine to each other. And yet, they do it all the time. Still, unless the locals have an axe to grind, they’re not likely to hunt you down for a few bottles.

But I hope the guy’s check clears before you ship, especially if you label it as a gift. Otherwise, you may never see payment.

[CFu]

Does PA mean Pennsylvania?

Or is it the Palestinian Authority?

If it’s Pennsylvania, then the big question is whether the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board [PLCB] is as interested in older vintage wine as they are in recently released wine.

My guess is that, on four bottles of Petrus [with, say, a retail value of $16,000 to $20,000], the PLCB is probably gonna wanna collect several thousand dollars in taxes on it.

And cheating the PLCB out of several thousand dollars in taxes is probably gonna be a rather serious felony.

And since the origin of the felony involves an American overseas, the FBI and the Treasury Department [Secret Service & BATF] and the Postal Service [mail fraud] could well become involved.

Possibly even Homeland Security.

I wish it was 16,000 to 20,000
I guess all that is missing is Wyatt Earp and Rosco P Coltrane.
I emailed the buyer and he explained to me it is common business practice to state " gift" and a man above said the same.
I guess you are trying to get me going,on that note,time to sleep.
Thanks to all the people that offered me advice.
Best,
Linda

In the USA - at least in most states - if you become a felon, then you can’t be a doctor nor a nurse nor a pharmacist nor a physical nor occupational therapist; nor a lawyer nor a paralegal; nor an accountant nor a financial planner; nor a real estate agent; nor can you work in any other profession which requires licensure from the state.

Similarly, you can’t get a liquor license from the state [which means neither a wine store nor a restaurant are in your future], nor can you get a license to open a day care, nor to drive a school bus, etc etc etc etc etc.

Nor can you get a security clearance, which means that you can neither work for nor contract with the Deep State, which removes something like 1/5th of the entire GDP from your potential sources of income.

Nor can you vote, and, worst of all, you lose your Right to Keep & Bear.

Now, at this point, honey, your problem is not so much in the tax felonies which you’re about to commit, but rather in the “INTENT” and “STATE OF MIND” which you’re displaying with all of this crap about “a gift”.

Falsifying the paperwork to be about “a gift” adds fraud to the list of your felonies, and with the prosecution able to show your intent & state of mind [beyond any reasonable doubt] to the jury, that increases your potential prison sentence from, say, 90 days, to a whole lot more like 96 MONTHS.

What’s more, if someone from the Feds kicks off this prosecution with a subpoena to Todd French, inquiring about your IP address, then all of these alphabet soup agencies will have carte blanche to start mucking around in “Commerce Corner”, and, at the end of the day, Wine Berserkers might very well be RICO’ed into oblivion.

Which would be a terrible shame, because there’s an enormous wealth of wine esoterica here that would simply vanish into thin air once the Feds were to take WB offline.

Guy who doesn’t know how Rico works talking like he knows how Rico works.

[John_Morris]

Fed Ex in France said no license is required and they take care of customs in The USA.
It is on its way,Fed Ex must know what they are doing,they are all over the world.

I would not assume that FedEx in Nice knows about shipping wine to the US in general, or about Pennsylvania in particular.

[Scott_G_r_u_n_e_r]

The neat thing about other online sites is that you can connect to them via the exact same internet that connect you here. Find Petrus at Catawiki's auctions - Catawiki

But geez those prices are getting really tempting,Linda

[Linda_Johnson]

Guess everything is okay.
Early morning in Europe,middle of the night EST.
It is showing as being in Memphis,TN.
It must be taking the scenic route.
Best,
Linda

[David_Glasser]

Memphis is the FedEx hub.
Maybe it clears customs into the US there? (Guessing)
Then on to PA.
Good luck, hope it gets there without incident.

[GregT]

Nah. Them good ol’ boys is drinking down some of that there Pete Roos just came in.

[CFu]

Memphis is the FedEx hub.
Maybe it clears customs into the US there? (Guessing)
Then on to PA.
Good luck, hope it gets there without incident.

That’s where it goes through for customs.

[patrick_c_albright]

And sits in ninety degree heat for a week.

[Humberto_Dorta]

Boys and girls, FYI, PA is no longer the wine black hole that it was as recently as last summer. They now allow wineries to ship to the state for an annual nominal fee (I think its 300 dollars) so the days of cops staking out wine stores in NJ have come and gone (This has not happened for many years anyway.) Every winery in California that I buy from now ships directly to PA except Marcassin. That being said, I would not want to cheat them out of money, especially after you posted about it here.

[Tom_G_l_a_s_g_o_w]

Boys and girls, FYI, PA is no longer the wine black hole that it was as recently as last summer. They now allow wineries to ship to the state for an annual nominal fee (I think its 300 dollars) so the days of cops staking out wine stores in NJ have come and gone (This has not happened for many years anyway.) Every winery in California that I buy from now ships directly to PA except Marcassin. That being said, I would not want to cheat them out of money, especially after you posted about it here.

How would you know what happens in NJ, all the way on the other side of the commonwealth? Any good stores in Ohio?

[David_Glasser]

The wine is clearly not home free yet. It’s in Memphis but has it cleared customs?

Depending on the correctness of the import paperwork done by FedEx in France, it could sit cooking in Memphis and be returned or confiscated. Or it could sail through customs.

While it sounds like PA has made progress with respect to winery direct-to-consumer shipments, this is not that. Will FedEx even attempt to send it to a PA address if it’s labeled as alcohol? Or is it just labeled as a “gift?”

I do hope it makes it and that Linda reports back on the outcome.

[Joe_W_i_n_o_g_r_a_d]

Can you post the tracking number? I can’t take the suspense.

[Steve_Manzi]

What is it with some people who want to buy expensive wine but don’t want to pay tax? And in this instance put the bulk of the risk on the seller. I had a former client in Toronto who wanted dummy invoices for his wine. He was spending $20k at a time with me. Go through legit channels or cosign to an EU auction house.

Too many people with too much money think that they are above the rules and laws of other lowly people.

[Bill_Tex_Landreth]

Can you post the tracking number? I can’t take the suspense.

She never posted a pic of the bottles, you think there is actually a tracking number?

The illegitimacy of his/her posts is epic.

[Mark_Maddox]

I have a child that lives in Memphis, happy to have them pick this Petrus up at the FedEx hub, of course then I can 100% guarantee it won’t make it to PA.

[Mattstolz]

Can you post the tracking number? I can’t take the suspense.

She never posted a pic of the bottles, you think there is actually a tracking number?

The illegitimacy of his/her posts is epic.

im really grateful to these Petrus posts for the entertainment value though.

[PaulMills]

Maybe she is really Ray.