Potential good news on Canada customs?

[RocketGTR]

The US 18 page report on their goals for changes to NAFTA states on page 6 of the document:

Provide for streamlined and expedited customs treatment for express delivery shipments, including for shipments above any de minimis threshold. Provide for a de minimis shipment value comparable to the U.S. de minimis shipment value of $800.00.

The US de minimis was set to $800 by the Obama administration

...raised the value of a shipment of merchandise imported by one person on one day that generally may be imported free of duties and taxes from $200 to $800.

As you can see, they consider any item imported that is valued at less than $800 to be free of duties and taxes. This why they can ship three MP-10's together in one package from Japan and not have to pay taxes or duties and if we did the same we'd be charged duties and taxes.

This is of course because Canada's current de minimis threshold, the value below which international shipments are exempt from customs processes, duties and taxes, is currently $20.00 as per the CBSA link I posted above.

Also as stated above, if your item mailed to you is $20 or less you don't pay duty OR taxes.

Therefore by raising the $20 CDN to $800 USD, any item you ship into Canada (from the US or Mexico as per the proposed revision to NAFTA) would not be subject to duty OR taxes.

This will obviously encourage online shopping from the US via Amazon, Ebay, major retailers, etc etc that will ship to Canada. More items will flow more swiftly through the border as less items will have to be stopped to be reviewed for duties and taxes.

Originally Posted by Bruticus

This will not affect the limits that have been set for GST/HST assessment so we will still get dinged there after $20 and that means Canada Post will still be assessing the $9.95 plus tax COD Fee (which is not duty either).

I'd be interested in seeing your source that states that the GST/HST has a separate assessment level from duty.

As per the quoted Memorandum in the CBSA site:

Remission

4. Subject to section 5, remission is hereby granted of the customs duties and excise taxes paid or payable on goods imported by mail and having a value for duty not exceeding $20.

This suggests that there is only one $20 threshold for both duty and taxes. The EU's recently imposed separate de minimis levels for duties and taxes and I've seen suggestions in articles that may be something Canada might consider which again suggests only one assessment for both taxes and duty.

The AG's recent report has already determined that we're spending two dollars for every dollar we're trying to collect on packages valued at less than $200 so this may be something on the Goverment's mind already.

Originally Posted by Hoffman

I honestly haven't found any of the reporting clear on whether they're referring to tax or duty.

Anyways to answer Hoffman's question, and I'm not an expert or anything, they are referring to both tax and duty as the US has a policy in place for no tax and duty on items valued less than $800 USD and I imagine they wish to continue to push Canada to follow suit to open up our markets to more of their retailers via online shopping. Plus Canada, as far as I can see, does not have separate assessment levels for taxes and duty.

This is just what I've read from various news articles and reading source materials etc. I could be completely off base, but this is how I interpret the information I've posted above.