I recently had this experience. I flew from India to Frankfurt via Dubai on Emirates. At Dubai duty-free, I bought up a PDA. On arrival at Frankfurt, I went straight to the green channel. They stopped me and asked me the contents of the 'Duty-free' bag that I was carrying. I showed them the PDA and after doing the umrechnung they told me that I have to pay zoll of 94 Euros (47 for the werte and 47 for going thru the green channel). I told the officer that I was not aware of this procedure and that i would retreat and pass thru the red channel but he laughed it away. Anyway, the moral of the story is that you are required to pay zoll if you carry stuff (excluding household requirements i.e. lebensmittel) worth 175 Euros or more. Thought I should share this with you all.

That was expected: Dutyfree means that You do not pay local VAT and customs duty because You are bringing that goods out of the country. But when You arrive to Germany it is expected to pay all of it, plus punishment for being improperly informed.
Consider Yourself lucky. In my country undeclared goods are confiscated immediately, plus paying duties and financial punishment.

Flights from Dubai a re more strictly checked for customs, due to its market nature.

Morale of the story. "Do not carry anything in duty free bag" - just joking.

"and 47 for going thru the green channel"

that's super!

i would say that i neither have sufficient amount of money with myself (never-never carry lots of cash in your wallet ;) ) nor can i get it - just 'cause i suffered a stress and forgot all PINs immediately *lol*

As imranahmadkhan mentioned in his reply, what would have happened if deepak had thrown the packing away and carried the PDA as a "used one"?

@ "-":
And wont you get the bill sent to your house???

"And wont you get the bill sent to your house???"

you will of course, but money will not be paid, and if everything is done correctly - will not be paid at least till the time that court of law decides that you have to pay them. it may take years and lots of headache for customs officials, so that they may let it go - if everything is done right ;)

i learned one lesson long time ago: if you have paid money, they are gone and usually will never come back, and it doesn't matter at all if you paid them for nothing. therefore i pay money only when i am sure that i really have to pay them

if you did not pay the money and the other guy wants them badly, it's he who has lots of headache and must search for a way to get them

Well Mr '-'.....
You may think that its their headache to get the money from you. But let me remind you that every organisation has a seperate Legal Enforcement Dept where people are employed for the sole purpose of collecting money from defaulters. It may take time but one day you might be forced to pay the money.

Germany has good policies and processes to extract money from people. So dont be surprised if the police comes one day with the bill in hand and asks you to pay the money on the spot.

Electronic merchandise are a lot cheaper in Dubai. I bought a digital camera for 423 euros compared to 699 euros, for the same camera model, in Germany. I bought it in Dubai's duty-free shop, got rid of the packing, read the manual during the flight. I couldn't take picture in the plane. The charming stweardess wouldn't allow me to have some fotos. :-)

At the customs they were just waiting for the passingers from Dubai and there was no way to sneak past the customs. :-)
So I approach one of them, he asked me if I have to declare something. I said to myself "I am not carrying any kind of weapon" and of course my answer was negative. He pointed to my hand-held bag and asked me to open it. I did and he looked around saw the unpacked camera and said nothing. So I stepped into Frankfurt saving more than 200 euros. The return ticket to Dubai cost about 420 euros back then.

To bring this long story to an end. You can buy what ever you want in Dubai but bring it back with you as a personal thing. Get rid of the packing and keep the choclate in the duty-free shop's bug. ;-)
Next time when I go there I am going to by myself a camacorder and a laptop.
I don't have to mention how much I will be saving.

Good luck on your next trip from/via Dubai :-)

"So dont be surprised if the police comes one day with the bill in hand and asks you to pay the money on the spot."

police has nothing to do with collecting debts at all ;)

if you make right steps and react right on invoices, reminders and so on, you will not have to pay anything before apellate court of law will decide that you must pay

"But let me remind you that every organisation has a seperate Legal Enforcement Dept where people are employed for the sole purpose of collecting money from defaulters."

hehe one of those departments (namely: Gerichtskasse Frankfurt) tries to collect 700 euros from me since last december, and they try all possible means to do that. till now they were able to collect 2,82 euros, and it is yet not clear whether they will have to pay those 2,82 euros back *lol*