Creative Cogitation

I thought I had already posted this, but I guess I spaced it. I wrote is a few weeks ago.

Of course now that I am back from the Bien­nale and the infor­ma­tion is of no cur­rent use to me, I have found out what those tem­po­rary impor­ta­tion licenses are called; Taw­era Tahuri  of New Zealand told me this thing is called a Car­net.  I Googled “car­net” and bingo up pops the USCIS web­site which is where US folks would apply for one.  Most of the fol­low­ing is copied from the USCIS website.

CAVEAT: I have not ever obtained a Car­net so there may be nuances I am miss­ing.  For exam­ple, I recall the EPS wanted artists using them to ship to the Bien­nale to get an Employer Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion Num­ber (EIN) in our given name to use in their ship­ping process somehow-my guess is that it may be nec­es­sary somewhere…

Mov­ing along…

“Car­nets are “Mer­chan­dise Pass­ports.” They are inter­na­tional cus­toms doc­u­ments that sim­plify cus­toms pro­ce­dures for the tem­po­rary impor­ta­tion of var­i­ous types of goods.  In the US two types are issued: ATA and TECRO/AIT Carnets. “

• “ATA Car­nets ease the tem­po­rary impor­ta­tion of com­mer­cial sam­ples (CS), pro­fes­sional equip­ment (PE), and goods for exhi­bi­tions and fairs (EF).  They facil­i­tate inter­na­tional busi­ness by avoid­ing exten­sive cus­toms pro­ce­dures, elim­i­nat­ing pay­ment of duties and value-added taxes (min­i­mum 20% in Europe, 27% in China), and replac­ing the pur­chase of tem­po­rary import bonds.” This would have been the one desired for ship­ping to Italy via FedEx etc.
• “TECRO/AIT Car­nets, used between the U.S.  and Tai­wan only, appear sim­i­lar to, and serve the same func­tion as the ATA Car­net.  TECRO/AIT Car­nets result from a bilat­eral agree­ment between the US and Tai­wan, cov­er­ing only com­mer­cial sam­ples (CS), and pro­fes­sional equip­ment (PE).  Mer­chan­dise enter­ing coun­tries in addi­tion to Tai­wan may also be accom­pa­nied by an ATA Carnet.”

Ben­e­fits of a Carnet:

• “Car­nets are valid for one year,
• “Are accepted in over 75 coun­tries and ter­ri­to­ries–see list below,
• “Elim­i­nate value-added taxes (VAT), duties, and the post­ing of secu­rity nor­mally required at the time of importation,
• “Sim­plify cus­toms procedures.
• “Car­nets allow a tem­po­rary exporter to use a sin­gle doc­u­ment for all cus­toms trans­ac­tions, make arrange­ments in advance, and at a pre­de­ter­mined cost,
• “Facil­i­tate reen­try into the US (and pre­sum­ably other coun­tries of ori­gin) by elim­i­nat­ing the need to reg­is­ter the goods with US Cus­toms (and pre­sum­ably other coun­tries of ori­gin) at the time of departure.

“CARNETS DO NOT EXEMPT HOLDERS FROM OBTAINING NECESSARY LICENSES OR PERMITS.

“Mer­chan­dise Cov­ered by Car­nets: Vir­tu­ally all goods, includ­ing com­mer­cial sam­ples, pro­fes­sional equip­ment, and items for trade shows and exhi­bi­tions, includ­ing dis­play booths, ordi­nary goods such as com­put­ers, tools, cam­eras and video equip­ment, indus­trial machin­ery, auto­mo­biles, gems and jew­elry, and wear­ing apparel, extra­or­di­nary items, for exam­ple, Van Gogh Self-portrait, Rin­gling Broth­ers tigers, Cessna jets, Paul McCartney’s band instru­ments, World Cup class yachts, satel­lites, human skulls, and the New York Phil­har­monic.” We artists mov­ing sculp­ture and other art­work around fall into this extra­or­di­nary cat­e­gory. “Car­nets DO NOT cover: con­sum­able or dis­pos­able goods (e.g., food and agri­cul­ture prod­ucts) give­aways, or postal traffic.

The List of Car­net Coun­tries (as of Decem­ber 30, 2009) on the USCIB web­site: Alge­ria, Andorra, Aruba , Aus­tralia, Aus­tria, Balearic Islands, Belarus, Botswana, Bul­garia, Canada, Canary Islands, Ceuta, Chile, China, Cor­sica, Croa­tia, Cyprus, Czech Repub­lic, Den­mark, Esto­nia, Fin­land, France, French Guiana, Ger­many, Gibral­tar, Greece, Guade­loupe, Guernsey, Hong Kong, Hun­gary, Ice­land, India, Ire­land, Isle Of Man, Israel, Italy, Ivory Coast, Japan, Jer­sey, Korea , Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liecht­en­stein, Lithua­nia, Lux­em­bourg, Mace­do­nia, Malaysia, Malta, Mar­tinique, Mau­ri­tius, May­otte, Melilla, Miquelon, Monaco, Mon­go­lia, Mon­tene­gro, Morocco, Namibia, Nether­lands, New Cale­do­nia, New Zealand, Nor­way, Pak­istan, Poland,  Por­tu­gal, Puerto Rico, Reunion Island, Roma­nia, Rus­sia, Sene­gal , Sin­ga­pore, Slo­va­kia, Slove­nia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, St.  Barthelemy, St.  Mar­tin, French Side, St.  Pierre, Swazi­land,  Swe­den, Switzer­land,  Tahiti , Tai­wan*,  Tas­ma­nia, Thai­land, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, United King­dom, United States, Wal­lis & Futuna Island

(Wow — I have never even heard of some of these places)

There are three basic com­po­nents to the Car­net appli­ca­tion process:

1. Gen­eral list
2. Car­net appli­ca­tion, and
   
3. Secu­rity deposit.

Basic pro­cess­ing fees are deter­mined by the value of a ship­ment.  In the US fees range from $210-$350 and the nor­mal pro­cess­ing time is about two work­ing days…  Pay­ment usu­ally can be made in the form of a check, money order, or credit card…  In the US as the National Guar­an­tee­ing Asso­ci­a­tion, USCIB (United States Coun­cil for Inter­na­tional Busi­ness) is required to take secu­rity, usu­ally 40% of ship­ment value, to cover any cus­toms claim that might result from a mis­used Car­net.  Accept­able forms of secu­rity are cer­ti­fied check or surety bond.  Cash deposits are returned in full and surety bonds are ter­mi­nated upon Car­net cancellation.

So if you get a Car­net, pre­sum­ably you can use what­ever ship­per you desire, but I still would go with one that ships between your coun­try and Italy so you have no issues deal­ing with get­ting your stuff shipped back home.

I really would have like to have had this infor­ma­tion – I dunno – back in Sep­tem­ber per­haps?  But I am get­ting more and more edu­cated in inter­na­tional shipping.

Thanks to Taw­era Tahuri of New Zealand for the clue.

If you have fur­ther knowl­edge of inter­na­tional ship­ping of art please share it with us all.

Yours in art,

Jake

Artist, AKAJake.com Come Expe­ri­ence the Art!

PS. I am still look­ing for Spon­sors & Con­tribut­ing Patrons to help me pay the $7651.31 I charged to attend this event; this amount is the sum all the receipts I can find relat­ing to the trip-about $4,000 is the Bien­nale artist’s share, then hotel & air­fare, plus pack­ag­ing for my art, taxis, meals in Italy, postage and other inci­den­tal expenses. I have raised about $2079 in dona­tions–many thanks to those who have con­tributed to this event.  But I need more assis­tance and every lit­tle bit helps.

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