I humbly bow to the collective concsiousness of the group mind-set, as
i seem to be the only one who thinks that deliberately mis-declaring the
"commercial value" of a package involved in a monetary transaction
(where "value" is defined as the amount the contents of the package are
being sold for (***trades don't count***, at least not for me, as i
consider the extension of tax and customs laws to strict trading (a law
in most countries) to be totally silly, and in most cases inapplicable
and/or impractical, for the reasons expounded upon by several folks in
the past few days), not some figment of someone's imagination!!) in
order to avoid the payment of taxes (no county that i know of charges
duties, as "HTS 0508" (the customs category unworked mollusc shells fall
under) is almost universally duty-free) , is  both lying and stealing,
by any normal definition of the terms.  The amounts involved are not
trivial, since in Japan and Europe, the "Value Added Tax" is 20% ( US
citizens have it sweet, in this respect - no taxes apply at all!!
Canadians only get tagged 7%.).  In any case, i will "cry Uncle", and
retire from the field, since i have no apparent allies in this seemingly
lost cause.
-Ross M.