^^^^ And to think, I thought our United States/CA State Government were gouging me so badly, with some of their ridiculous taxes.
What the heck does a brand new, Ford, Chevy or Dodge truck sell for in Canada- or do I want to know?
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Why it sucks to buy stuff in the US and ship to Canada
- Thread starter Gideons
- Start date
^^^^ And to think, I thought our United States/CA State Government were gouging me so badly, with some of their ridiculous taxes.
What the heck does a brand new, Ford, Chevy or Dodge truck sell for in Canada- or do I want to know?
Everything I buy is made in the USA so there is never duty.
Worst case would be hst which I've never been charged when I haven't been out long enough.
In 30 odd years of crisscrossing the border their big concern seems to be alcohol and tobacco.
24 hours gets you 200.00 and 48 hours gets you 800.00
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- Jan 29, 2010
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- 9,843
..... I pay $0.47 per $ I earn, then there is a 10% GST applied to most consumer items (fresh food is exempt). At least taxes and duties for what I buy overseas don't kick in till the value hits $1K Aussie (including shipping).
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I once bought a used pair of oakley sunglasses valued at $90, was charged $45 duty! literally half the cost of the item! Canadian customs needs to change the value on which they can charge customs/duty! Its really hard when 98% of the wonderful things I get, comes from the states.
^ That is sickening!
Thank you for the clarification. :thumbup:
^ Wow! When I look at my weekly payroll deductions from now on, I'll try to use some perspective.
It can be cost effective to order from the U.S. to Canada as you have more retailers and therefore price competition and sales, etc. But the main reason to order from south of the border is selection, we do have a couple really good retailers here that don't price gouge but as the market here is smaller they can only bring in and sell so many of the popular knives like a PM2 for example and very few of the more "exotic" or more expensive knives. It's kind of odd actually, we can't walk around here with guns so we are left with knives yet not many people seem to carry one here. Now we aren't legally allowed to carry one for self defence however we can carry it for any other reason. You never know when one might go on a spontainious hunting trip up here! We have very little restriction on size, but no autos, gravity, butterfly blah blah... I've been pretty lucky not getting hassled by customs or tagged with a fee so far but other than a Smock Knives SK23, I've only ordered a few traditionals recently which customs doesn't seem to be concerned with, restrictions or $ value. Anything else I've ordered I guess was before they started getting their panties in a bunch over knives.
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Good thread, as a Canadian it's hard to read without getting frustrated. I haven't had too many problems with the border but I do ask shippers to tighten the pivots and tell them how customs works they usually lower the declared value. One retailer I frequent has a practice of declaring all knives at $29.99. The most reliable way of course is to have an address to ship to in the US a PO box or a friend I have a few friends who live in the US but have family in Canada I often ship to them then have them bring things across when they visit. It is infuriating that free trade applies to large corporations but not to citizens.
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Do they open up the package to see what it is or the shipper has to put the value of the item on the customs form?
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Sometimes, I've gotten lots of packages that are totally intact and others that have been opened it's really obvious because of the yellow tape they use. I have to add it's the worst if your package goes through Montreal (get ready for at least a 2 week wait) rather than Toronto. Stuff that crosses out west seems to do a bit better and move faster maybe it's just lower volume.
Have any of you ever considered shipping to a friend near the border and picking it up from them? (That is if you live close enough to the border or the purchase makes it worthwhile.) I have a brother who is studying in Detroit right now so right before we visit him, we order and ship things to him and then we pick it up.
I'm pretty sure it applies to small businesses as well, not sure how difficult it is to start a business in Canada but here it's as easy as filling out a form for sole proprietor and not that much more to form a corporation (a few extra documents), cost is a couple hundred dollars at most I'd say, but again that's here in New York
Is it possible "expensive shipping" attracts duty? Based on my experience elsewhere, if shipping alone costs $55, customs will re-value the goods at several times that amount and slap duty on it. When I ship to someone in Canada, I typically do a USPS First Class which has a pretty good record of about week to ten days. If its a high value item, I still do a USPS First Class and add Registered to it (an extra ~$14). First Class Registered is "iron clad" and much cheaper than some Express shipments.
Nope. Duty is based solely on the good's value.
It has been noted in several other threads Canada has an artificially low de minimis value that the big retail players have a lot of interest in keeping in place.
To add insult to injury the border agency has been on an enforcement tear to open and charge tax and duty on as much as possible including a new processing fee that is stacked on top of the tax and duty for merely doing their job.
Lots of folks used to do that pre-net. They'd have a mailbox at a border town and drive down ever week or so to pick up. Not just private folks but businesses would do that and self import vs. letting the broker/carrier stiff them with a 75% handling fee. This was in the late 80s for bike and Moto-X parts that you'd see in magazines but either had no Canadian channel or the distributor was so slow they were a year behind the cutting edge.
Pro tip: DO NOT USE Fedex, UPS, DHL etc. to ship things over the border. They charge an INSANE brokerage fee to do the customs clearance and if you don't prepay that money they charge you for a bond (2.7% for UPS) and then they finally add the actual real tax on top of that. I had to pay $35 on a $60 order and the takes were in reality a little over $3. You can see their rates here https://www.ups.com/content/ca/en/shipping/cost/zones/customs_clearance.html?WT.mc_id=VAN7000411
These rates are charged on every parcel because they make so much more money from this process.
USPS/Canada Post will charge a $9.95 handling fee and then what ever your provinces GST/PST/HST rate is. They randomly pick parcels for getting taxed. I have been taxed on $50 parcels while $500 ones get through without.
These rates are charged on every parcel because they make so much more money from this process.
USPS/Canada Post will charge a $9.95 handling fee and then what ever your provinces GST/PST/HST rate is. They randomly pick parcels for getting taxed. I have been taxed on $50 parcels while $500 ones get through without.
This practice by Canadian Customs definitely sucks! I got slapped with duty numerous times (ordering from USA), most recent being just this Monday when I got my ($202 US) Busse Trail Scalpel and charged $45 CAN in fees on top of that! I try to keep US orders to a minimums as much as I can, but I always expect to get hit when I do. Now and then a packages slips through without charges and I am grateful for that!