Originally Posted by
EQDsSUCK
The food answers have been very informative. What is the GE process now if you declare to have jewelry/clothes/wine over the $800 exemption? And can you combine exemption limits with: a live-in girlfriend, relatives that you don't live with, a long-time girlfriend who works and lives in a different city?
Also, would it be wise to have researched the tariff guide and tell the officer what you think you owe or wait for them to figure it out (at the risk of them figuring it higher than you—the categories are very confusing).
There's a separate question that asks if you're over your duty free exemption. Note that the $800/1L alcohol isn't fixed and depends on how long you've gone and where you've traveled to and such.
https://help.cbp.gov/app/answers/det...cbp-form-6059b
So for family allowances: Possibly. No. Possibly not.
I wouldn't bother. A) supposedly they're experienced enough, trained enough, and have the tools to make accurate duty assessments, B) the attitude of too many CBP agents is to escalate a situation if encountering any pushback or challenge. Unless the assessment is extremely off, better to either just eat or file an appeal later imo. My personal experience is most agents will waive duty when exceeding the exemption limits, seemingly rather than go through the hassle of doing so. If you're bring in clearly more than personal use or excessively high value items, I think that would have a different outcome.