At 5:08 AM -0700 2005/05/11, James Fraser wrote:
>I'm getting (yet another) bit for my Mac shipped from the Great White North.
>Hurrah! However, all is not well...
"From" Canada or "to" Canada? My comments below are for things
coming from the USA being sent to Canada. The details may be a bit
different when going in the other direction.
>believe I asked in advance...) isn't enough. The phrase "possible customs'
>cost" is being used in an effort to (dare I say it?) get more money out of
>me. <sigh>
Customs (which with NAFTA is very rare) and taxes (PST+GST) are
assessed at the border and paid by the recipient. The shipper generally has
nothing to do with it. Thus, the shipping costs you pay to the seller
should not be influenced by them.
For inexpensive items, often the greatest charge is for "customs
brokerage" - basically for someone to stand in line at the customs house
and shepherd the package across the border. Many carriers (Fed Ex, etc.)
have this included in their shipping charges on only SOME classes of
shipping. UPS for example often ends up charging the recipient a minimum of
$25 to $50 (plus a percentage of the declared value) IN ADDITION to any
customs and taxes for this service. Canada post on the other hand charges a
flat $5 for brokerage. Thus I almost always ask for shipping via the postal
system to save me paying high brokerage fees.
>
>I'm sure that list members have shipped Mac-related peripherals, etc., down
>here, so I'm wondering: when stuff ships from Canada to the US, at what
>"minimum value" are customs charges levied on the goods? I'm also wondering
>how the worth of something is calculated. This comes into play here because
>I won the item off of ePay for a whopping one cent. Of course, I'm guessing
>that a given item's value for customs purposes is not based on what was
>actually paid for it, but what, say, an objective third party would assess
>its value as.
Generally speaking, I always ask that the seller place the actual
selling price (absent any handling/shipping charges) on the customs
declaration, and note that the item is "used", as in "used computer
equipment". I think that this is more defendable than using any other
assessed value. Arguably, the final auction price is the best assessment of
the value of the advertised goods. When shipping things to the USA, I will
often note if the item was originally purchased in the USA to begin with
and brought across the border into Canada - if so it should probably have
no customs charges on it at all.
I am guessing that the letter of the law sets no minimum value for
customs charges, but that in practice there is probably some cut-off where
charges are seldom made.
With all of that said, to my knowledge, I have NEVER been charged
"customs" on anything I have purchased going across the border in either
direction (maybe one hundred shipments? from $1 to $700?). I have very
frequently been charged provincial and federal taxes (as is almost
everything in Canada), and the aforementioned brokerage fees, but never any
customs charges.
--
* Johann Beda - contact link: <http://public.xdi.org/=j-beda> *
* Johann's MostlyMac Computer Consulting - <http://mmcc.beda.ca/> *
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