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Old 06-14-2018, 08:27 AM   #11
Bruticus82
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Re: Customs Duties?

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Originally Posted by Poflymn View Post
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.
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.
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Old 06-14-2018, 08:41 AM   #12
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Re: Customs Duties?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Poflymn View Post
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.

That's not entirely correct. For alcohol and tobacco, yes, since the markup in duties and taxes is astronomical. Whereas, if you buy from the U.S. it is just the local taxes (the province you reside) you pay. There are also plenty of countries that Canada has trade agreements with that also only incur local taxes and not the standard duties and taxes.
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Old 06-14-2018, 10:04 AM   #13
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Re: Customs Duties?

O.K, thanks everyone for your replies. To me this line stood out

"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."

That sounds essentially correct to me and yes I do understand the essential concept of duty. What surprised me was the fact that I could be assessed no duty but still incur tax. I guess I naively assumed I'd incur both or neither.

It also seems a bit unfair that I would be taxed and then assigned a handling fee, that feels like a tax on a tax. Again I'm sure that's how it works and plenty of you have proven just that in your posts, but it just feels wrong somehow.

For the record the shipper was the US postal service but the vendor was BBTS. I generally try to avoid them simply because they cover the outside of their boxes with their corporate logo which to me acts as beacon to customs people and so I often get hit if I order from them. This time around though I had no real choice, they were the only ones who had what I wanted. I'm not mad or really upset, I kind of expected this to happen, its just the mechanics of it that seemed weird.
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Old 06-14-2018, 10:50 AM   #14
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Re: Customs Duties?

I always pay customs with BBTS on orders worth more than $100. Never with the other US sellers though, go figure.
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Old 06-14-2018, 10:57 AM   #15
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Re: Customs Duties?

yes it is the tariff. not only on toys. food, steel, household stuff etc. there is a long long long list. you name it.

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Old 06-15-2018, 04:45 AM   #16
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Re: Customs Duties?

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Originally Posted by Omegatron View Post
It also seems a bit unfair that I would be taxed and then assigned a handling fee, that feels like a tax on a tax. Again I'm sure that's how it works and plenty of you have proven just that in your posts, but it just feels wrong somehow.
A buddy of mine used to write the occasional angry letter to CBSA and Canada Post to complain about that very thing (He used to import Apple stuff before they had Apple stores in Canada). They politely told him to fuck off every time.
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Old 06-16-2018, 09:28 AM   #17
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Re: Customs Duties?

I got tagged by customs yesterday.


What ticks me off is just how random it seems. I got charged $23.97 on a package that came from Florida, but the last two weeks I've had packages come in from Korea and get nothing!
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Old 03-06-2021, 02:16 PM   #18
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Re: Customs Duties?

Has the situation changed at all in the past few years, or since COVID?


The impression I got was that certain large stores like BBTS (I don't recall any others) always get taxed regardless of the value.
Does that mean there's no point in spending extra to divide up my shipment?


The rest of my impression was that UPS/FedEx/DHL always charge tax plus an extra fee, but government shipping services below $100 (I'm guessing Canadian) almost never got taxed, and plenty of people never got taxed even well above that, though no specifics on how much.


It's been 3.5 years since a proposed increase in the duty-free amount, but I'm guessing there's no hurry for Biden to attempt a new NAFTA negotiation yet. I thought I read that he wouldn't be able to replace the guy in charge of the USPS for another year, and I'm guessing the shipping prices won't go down until then.
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Old 03-06-2021, 02:26 PM   #19
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Re: Customs Duties?

Large packages always get dinged for taxes, I have never seen a problem with that. Especially considering smaller packages often won't be taxed. An item arrived with a declared value under 400$ and I didn't get hit for that one.

I don't consider it a penalty in the slightest. I have never been charged duties or anything that isn't tax related. I just pay the tax on things later when the shipments arrive.

It is the price we pay for taking our business elsewhere, but when that elsewhere can get product in faster and still cheaper than MSRP CND prices, yeah I'll still keep doing business with BBTS.
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Old 04-06-2021, 01:27 PM   #20
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Re: Customs Duties?

for HasbroPulse and FedEx, what are your experiences with additional customs fees?

I always avoided FedEx, UPS, and DHL because I thought they always charged additional customs fees; but after seeing AgesThreeAndUp's $30 US markup on Black Zarak, I'm reconsidering and looking into FedEx.

https://www.fedex.com/en-ca/ancillar...e-service.html
Ah, HasbroPulse's "FedEx International Economy" counts as "Express" for "Canada - FedEx Express" category.
Quote:
Disbursement Fee
2.5% of the total duty and tax advanced or $10 CAD, whichever is greater.
In the event we disburse duties and taxes on any given shipment to a customs agency, the payer will be assessed an ancillary clearance service fee based on a flat rate or on a percentage of the total amount disbursed.

ROD Fee
CAD $10.00 + Applicable Tax
Charged to customers with no acct number or poor payment history for collection at time of delivery.
I'm guesing the tax disbursement fee doesn't apply since the taxes are paid through HasbroPulse, not FedEx.
and the ROD fee can be avoided if you sign up for an account? Do you NEED to sign up for an account to avoid that, or is this just a fee for 1st time receivers, after which an account is created automatically? Are there really no fees??

Wait, why is HasbroPulse charging 14% tax and AgesThreeAndUp charging 5% tax? Both shipping to Ontario addresses.
If there's no FedEx fees at all, Ages3+ will still be cheaper for Black Zaraks, but comparable at 2 Black Zaraks from Hasbro vs 1 from Ages3+, and 5 (but roughly 3-6) Black Zaraks from Hasbro vs 2+ from Ages3+. (AgesThreeAndUp: 1=~$199.61 USD, 2+= $188.62 USD ea.; HasbroPulse: 1=$212.40, 2=$197.40 ea., 3=$192.40 ea., 4=$189.90 ea., 5=$188.40 ea.)
I'm glad I didn't miss out on any savings then.

Last edited by RavageX-9; 04-06-2021 at 11:15 PM.
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