[Need suggested place in US to relocate family]

Given their political views that you mentioned in a follow-up post, I would second cmarshall's recommendation for the Northampton/Amherst, MA area.

Pro:

- Good mix of university and town influences

- Public transportation (bus) pretty good

- Not the culture shock that relocation outside of Northeast would be for them

- NYC 2.5 hrs away, Boston 1.5 hrs away

Con:

- Northeast cost of living (but NYC may have inoculated them to that!)

- Housing tight during academic year because of student influx, but who knows with virus this year

 

@cmarshall - I had to smile a bit when you mentioned delivery from Big C - I wouldn't want to see the delivery charges!  You probably meant Big Y - my Thai partner makes the same transposition.

['How did things end up like this?' America's newly unemployed grapple with coronavirus fallout]

8 hours ago, DoctorG said:

People who do not understand tax often make this mistake. Just because you got a smaller return does not mean that you paid more tax.

I would really be surprised if you actually paid more tax. Instead of looking at the return amount you need to compare how much tax you actually paid year on year, if the income was comparable. 

Actually, the Trump tax increase hurt quite a few of us because of the SALT cap.  If you live in an area with high state and local property taxes and have mostly W2 income that can't be creatively shifted around, you probably paid more taxes.  There were some games done with withholding that obfuscated this somewhat, but total Federal taxes paid as a percentage of W2 income was higher for me and many with whom I work.

[Any issue bringing MANY electronics gifts from usa?]

I think your question was focused on whether or not five of the same items would look like a business to the inspectors.  Of course, anything might happen, but my one recent experience with Customs at the Bangkok airport was pretty relaxed.  I arrived with over $1,500 USD in phones and a camera for family gifts.  Like you, I was willing to pay the duty to avoid having the items confiscated and having a sad story to tell about that.

 

The custom workers in the inspection lane tried a couple of times to send me through express and I had to insist that I wanted to declare some items.  I opened my luggage and showed the items to them.  They asked me for a total value, took my word for it, and I paid  the duty with a credit card.

 

Not exactly your situation, but I think as long as you are up front about it you shouldn't have a problem.  It might help to have some information available (names, relationship) on who will be receiving the gifts, but I might be overthinking it.