Bureaucracy

Solomons Island, Maryland, Holiday Inn

I rowed over to chat with the couple from Toronto that I mentioned yesterday. They had an interesting story.

They are both Canandians but they moved to the USA some years ago. While they were here, they bought their boat. When they went to document it with the Coast Guard, they were told, "No you can't do that because you are not American citizens." So they documented the boat in Canada. However if they wanted to return to Toronto for a visit, they would have to pay a 26% excise tax to import it. Therefore the boat has never been to Canada.

Now, they have become American citizens and they asked again about documenting the boat here. They were told, "OK, but you will have to reimport the boat to the USA and pay the tariff." Ay ay. They boat remains registered in Canada, so they must continue to buy annual cruising permits from the USA.

If they had chosen to register the boat in Maryland, rather than a federal documentation, they would have had to deal with sales taxes, certificate of title or manufacturer's certificate of origin.

Hearing stories like that make my libertarian blood boil. What a mess [all] governments make of things. We would be better off without them most of the time.