[PeterisP]

It's not literally impossible - the simple solution to standard invoice being unacceptable is to issue a different invoice that matches the requirements, and almost every vendor is happy to do so in order to make the sale.

Also, the informal tax-evading economy relies on personal contacts and 'mutual understanding' - it's not easily accessible to a foreign vendor, and when foreign vendors do want to access that economy, it requires much more adoption of local customs than just making a different format of invoice.

[notch656a]

Yes literally impossible to take something in a format legal in the US, that doesn't match the foreign requirements, based on European testimony above (the exact truth of which IDK).

Informal tax-evading (when the seller isn't evading, just the buyer) doesn't require personal contacts. This is just naïve thoughtless statement. It happens all the time. Example: business owner goes to Panama where they know no one. Buys a pallet of llama wool, seller gives a non-conforming receipt. Buyer goes back to France, imports the pallet as "cotton" and creates a fake invoice showing the Panamanian sold cotton. Seller then sells llama wool on the streets for cash, marking in the books that they sold "cotton" for significantly less. They then use the on-the-books "cotton" proceeds to buy a shit-wagon car or something, and fix it using the unrecorded cash on the side. They sell the now nice shit-wagon and record the proceeds as profit. Now all the money for the llama wool is accounted for.

Cross country tax-evading is only assured in this case to require personal contacts when the tax evading happens on _both_ sides. When it only happens on the EU side, there's no need for personal contacts on the US side.

[DocTomoe]

> Buys a pallet of llama wool, seller gives a non-conforming receipt. Buyer goes back to France, imports the pallet as "cotton"

Customs catches him (distinguishing cotton from non-cotton is surprisingly easy, so is forged documents for invoicing and freight papers, especially given that Panama is an unusual country to export raw cotton - or raw wool - from), he is now in prison for 5 years for tax fraud and document forging, llama wool is confiscated and auctioned off to legitimate sellers.

[notch656a]

Maybe you can come up with a better example then :) Here in the US pallets of cocaine regularly make it through customs. Our customs officers are generally one rung above high-school dropout. They'd generally be lucky to distinguish heroin from a pallet of sand, let alone cotton from wool.

Not in the export/import business myself, just passed through customs enough to see just how truly stupid and vapid these officers are, combined with the truly insane amount of import/export volume each one is responsible for. In the US distinguishing types of fabrics and ensuring various legal substances that look vaguely similar actually are what they say they are is near the bottom of the priorities list. I don't have a lot of experience with EU customs (except see last paragraph).

I know people want to believe customs is some highly intelligent caring group of individuals who are sleeplessly guarding the country and the purse in a carefully planned and executed manner with a fine-toothed comb. Anyone with this belief has probably never crossed an international border. In practice it's more like the mental equivalent of a 4 year old set loose with a completely unreliable "drug dog" that alerts on a grandma who is ruthlessly interrogated while one guy with llama wool and 10 pablo escabars pass on the other side.

I can recall one occasion where I stepped directly from fucking IRAQ into EU and not a single customs officer even looked at me. Not one. Just a stamp without a single question. I could have been carrying literally anything and no one cared. I could have been coming from Iraq for any reason and no one gave a fuck what that reason might be.