In tune with the times, Cuban Customs does not escape the update Cuba is undertaking: items that were not previously considered personal effects will be considered as such as of now, in a dialectical and logical "forgiveness" to technologies that are rapidly becoming everyday items like laptops and cell phones.
Since last November 10, media players, mobile phones, computers or portable televisions, cameras and apparatus for transporting, entertaining or feeding children are also considered personal effects. Before the passing of this new regulation people could bring them in, but they had to pay an import tax, which caused great discomfort to the public.
At the request of Customs, the Ministry of Finance and Prices issued Resolution 357-2012 to broaden the range of tax free items, previously reduced to clothing, footwear or all belonging to intimate grooming or makeup. But modernity requires more than clean underwear and a toothbrush when you are traveling.
The previous restriction dates back 33 years, when the Decree-Law 22 1979 stipulated personal items that could be imported tax free, with exceptions in certain very specific circumstances, that the law did not specify, by the way.
For example, before you needed a special official document to enter a computer or a DVD player, and after allowing its importation, the traveler had to pay an import tax.
In 2009, 15 years after the craetion of the Ministry of Finance and Prices, Cuba signed the International Convention ofr Kyoto to simplify and harmonize customs procedures, which adds portable devices to the category of personal effects, given their extended use worldwide, and in many countries dependence, of cellular and multimedia technology.
Therefore, despite to new migration policies and more ambitious projects to attract tourists it was necessary to update customs provisions to encourage and help the traveler. And while customs officers are often seen as the bad guys, they are simply governed by the stipulations of the said Ministry: the problem is not of an institution, it is of people…
And you find uncomfortable people in any profession
