Reykjavík Grapevine - 08.05.2015, Blaðsíða 10

10 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 5 — 2015
Kolabrautin is on
4th floor Harpa
Reservations
+354 519 9700
info@kolabrautin.is
www.kolabrautin.is
A dinner at the elevated fourth floor of Harpa concert hall
is a destination in itself. Relax and enjoy the best Icelandic
produce complemented with a spectacular panoramic view
of Reykjavík and the surrounding horizon.
For a special evening
with a view like no other
Opinion | Customs :(
After quite a lot of talking on the
phone to various intelligent, friendly
people, and several emails thereafter,
I managed to get the tariff lowered
by 18,000 and a temporary levy was
placed on the goods, which meant I
could get the money refunded once
I exited the country. What, you guys
don't take a cheque? Escrow? Faberge
eggs? You see, a credit card billing cy-
cle is normally something like 30 days,
but this incident falls in the middle of
mine, so I will be forced to pay this
amount off before then or be charged
interest. My only other option was to
put the tariff on my debit card and be
charged 2.5% plus a £1 foreign trans-
action fee and not have access to that
money for a month. For all I can see
this is at best a hostage situation to
prevent the goods from staying in the
country and selling at a lower price,
at worst it is a song and dance. Please
note that everyone in this experience
was delightful to deal with.
I arrive at DHL to recover the
goods and pay the tariff, but the
amounts on the invoices haven't been
changed to reflect the new “low” price
of 60,000 ISK. My ride waits patiently
for me as yet another nice human be-
ing helps to remedy this paperwork
scramble. About ten minutes later I
am charging my English credit card,
I am handed an E14 form in Icelandic
(thankfully I have made friends with
some locals for translation) and told
that I can recuperate these funds at
the airport when I leave Iceland. In a
month. Bring the items for serial num-
ber verification please, thank you. As I
walk out, I think about how this ped-
antry concerning the importation of
goods must, with every taxed krona,
generate a hostile feeling which feeds
back into society.
These rules, and many more like
them abroad, set up by our govern-
ments and businesses to regulate
trade and labour alike, pave the way
not only for more hostility and stress
in a society but goad unruly citizens
into the very criminal behaviour that
governments go to great lengths to
prevent. I'm certain there are a lot of
other effects that we could research,
pull into focus groups, and draw out
on graph paper and pie charts. But
why should we?
Most of us inherently sense the
limitations to a restrictive system. I
wonder how much it costs to admin-
ister and enforce this customs process
compared to what
it brings in terms of
government revenue.
Really, how is this
system benefiting so-
ciety given its restric-
tive nature and the
all too often negative
impact on people it
is intended to serve?
Because if it makes
sense, financial
sense at least, then
I can work the logic. But if it doesn’t,
shouldn't it be criminal? I mull this
over as I consider what life would be
like living in Iceland full-time: taking
the bus to Elko in the blizzard to buy a
television, to wile away winter's edge
because I can't simply order one on
Amazon and have it delivered.
Words by Gabrielle Motola
Photo by Gabrielle Motola
I should probably begin by explaining the title to those of you who were born to a differ-
ent generation. It's a reference to a slogan used by MTV in the 1980s. If you love American
culture you'd be considered a philistine not to look this up. Until today I felt like I was liv-
ing (temporarily) in the most liberal modernised country in the world. The rules seemed
to be fair and based on common sense, decency, and intelligence. They were administered
by people of equal merit. I was impressed. Then I had a run-in with Icelandic customs law.
Olympus, a company I am an Ambassador for, sent me some equipment to try out. Despite
my employers labelling the shipments with ”demonstration purposes only” and ”not for
resale” and “no commercial value,” the goods were held by customs until a tariff of 78,000
ISK was paid.
For all I can see this
is at best a hostage
situation to prevent
the goods from stay-
ing in the country
and selling at a lower
price, at worst it is a
song and dance.
I Want My
Amazon TV