I mailed myself stuff from Lithuania to Germany and Canada to Germany, and never had to pay taxes, usually the value of goods was somewhere around $60. Check your customs regs at home (the post office will tell you the limits) and just make sure that anything new you ship would be under that amount. If you have to mail your own stuff home (clothing you no longer need, for example) just mark that it is personal and used, and depreciate it accordingly, should have no issues with taxes.
New stuff, marked as a gift, again should be no issue - we mail parcels to friends and relatives in UK, US, Canada, Lithuania, Japan, etc. and receive from them, and never have customs duty issues. I can't imagine that the limit would be $19, that's just paltry. But double check with your post office.