Letter to Customs via Moving Company

Mr. Monfils,

I am writing to request reconsideration of the customs officials, to release our goods.

The officials searched through our belongings for 5 hours at a very high cost and found two items that should be taxed:
- cold cereal in unopened boxes (my wife generally buys cereal ahead of time whenever it is on sale, so we always have a stock of 20 boxes or so on hand)
- new children's clothing (these items were gifts that we received from friends in May for our newborn son who was at that time not yet born - he was born 31 Aug 2006. Or, clothes that my wife bought last spring for this winter)

Both items are a normal part of taking care of a family with five children.

If we should be taxed, then tax us, but release our goods so that our family can live in our house with our goods. As of the 29th of of November we will be living in a house that is completely empty and we will be sleeping on the floor. Additionally, we will be living with no pots, pans, plates, glasses, beds, blankets, etc.

Please note to customs officials, that this extreme inconvenience for two items, comes after six months of living without our household goods - because, it should be noted, that we moved out of our house in the USA at the end of May/beginning of June - just about six months ago. We moved out of our house at that time because we were originally planning on moving this summer, but did not because the German health insurance companies said that due to my wife's "pre-existing condition" of being pregnant she would not be accepted by a health insurance company and therefore would have to pay for the entire cost of the pregnancy. We stayed in the US until our son was born.

But that does not change the fact that in May/June, my wife and children moved across the country to Utah to live with my In-laws and I moved in with friends in Wisconsin, and our household goods moved into storage. So for just about six months now our goods have been in storage in Wisconsin, or in storage on a ship, or in storage in the Netherlands. So, technically speaking everything we own has been in our possession for at least six months. Nothing that we own is new anymore, because even if it was new when we packed our household in May/June (like the gifts of baby clothing), it is no longer new, we have owned it now for at least six months.

Gardner