Quote:
Originally Posted by Poflymn
The purpose of customs is to essentially discourage buying outside of Canada. The reason they charge you taxes is more or less a penalty for not spending the money within Canada from a Canadian Business. The theory behind it is that you could have bought the item in Canada but decided to buy it elsewhere in order to avoid having to pay taxes on the item.
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I would modify this slightly and say the charging of taxes is not a "penalty" but to "level the playing field" so you pay the same amount of tax on goods regardless of whether you buy them inside of Canada or outside of Canada. Otherwise Americans and others who don't have to charge Canadian sales tax would be selling their products for 5% to 15% cheaper (depending on your province).
As for the Canada Post/CBSA fee, you can imagine that it's not really worth their time to fill out paperwork for low levels of taxes only (and no duties). So they charge that ~ $10 fee for their time.
