New Canada Customs Charges?

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CeddieB

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Hi. Been trading and buying/selling for years across the Canada/US border and I am familiar with the costs & pitfalls of doing so. But the two trades that arrived from the U.S. this week were a new one for me:

#1: Declared as a Gift of "Sports Cards" with a value of US $75. CBSA charged me 5% GST on a 'Value for Duty' of C$43.49 = $2.17 + $9.95 Handling Fee = $12.12 payable

#2: Declared as a Gift of "Collectible Cards" with a value of US $400. CBSA charged me 5% GST on a 'Value for Duty' of C$492.28 = $24.81 + $9.95 Handling Fee = $34.56 payable

Is this a new policy/enforcement? I can understand collecting GST on purchases (as ebay and COMC have done), but gifts/trades? And even if I'm fine paying the 5% GST, the fixed handling fee makes the effective tax rate quite punitive for smaller deals.

Anyone else seen this? Any way to avoid it?
 
Get it Shipped International is my solution to the headache that is Canada Post and border services. If you do enough transactions to make it worthwhile, the service pays for itself. I can't recommend it enough.

Years ago it seems I only had a package stopped at the border for additional charges one in a while. These days, anything of any value seems to get stopped and charged, no matter what you label it.
 
This makes me nervous now. I made a trade in early November and the card coming my way has had been stuck in customs for over two weeks. We both marked the packages as “gifts”. Are they able to make up a value of the card and still charge me?
 
I have always put a value of less than $60 on the little form I fill b4 shipping anything to the U.S.A and never have had to deal with customs. I also always ship with tracking.Costs more, but at least I never have to deal with fees.
 
hen44jay said:
This makes me nervous now. I made a trade in early November and the card coming my way has had been stuck in customs for over two weeks. We both marked the packages as “gifts”. Are they able to make up a value of the card and still charge me?
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Yes, if they feel you are either trying to avoid customs they can charge you on the full amount. The limit of forgiveness on a gift is only $60 so if they feel it is over that, they charge you the taxes on the difference.

If they have overcharged you, you can then file a dispute to try and get your money back. They will expect to see comps or a receipt or some sort of proof the item does not have the value they assigned.

Cory
 
I bought 2 Taylor Hall Gemography cards from the latest Black Diamond set. Customs processed both cards separately as “Jewelery” Steangley received 2 different final amounts to pay. If I haven’t list the paperwork, I will be disputing the 2nd one for sure.
 
The rules can be found in multiple places.

Firstly, cards do not have duty charged, only sales tax, based on your province of residence.

Marking something as a "gift" really does not mean squat. CRA and CBSA know that people try to use this as a work around to avoid paying taxes.

Personal exemption limit in Canada is $20 CDN purchasing through the mail. Anything over that limit is subject to sales taxes on the value over the $20. If marked as a gift, the limit rises to $60 CDN, and the recipient is responsible for sales taxes on the amount over $60.

The $9.95 is the brokerage (or handling fee) charged by Canada Post, and it is the cheapest around. It used to be $5.00 but was raised a couple years ago. UPS charges anywhere from $20 to $50 depending on the value. This fee is non negotiable and has nothing to do with CRA or CBSA. It is charged by the shipping company to clear the parcel on your behalf through customs. You always have the option to self broker anything and save these fees, but that must be worked out before handing off the goods to the shipper. That would require you to go into your local CBSA office and prove to them the value of the goods. For $9.95, I'm content to let Canada Post do that for me.

You can dispute the tax amounts with CBSA/CRA, if you believe you are being overcharged, but you need to be able to prove what you actually paid for the items, and since they were marked as a "gift", that really isn't an option now. The $9.95 fee is still applicable.

Based on the numbers you provided on the customs form, the amounts charged are exactly what you owed. If these were purchases and you paid more than the declared value on either of them, you got away with actually paying less than what was owed.

Receiving items shipped thru USPS/Canada Post is still a crap shoot whether or not these will have charges assessed. It seems eBay is not collecting sales tax on purchases made by Canadians from the US unless they are shipped through the global shipping program. Those auctions still come with a disclaimer that further taxes are the responsibility of the buyer. I would say about 75% of my purchases are coming through untouched.

Anything shipped with a courier such as FedEx or UPS will get assessed.

Going the other way, US residents do not seem to have an exemption limit, or if they do, it is so high that the majority of purchases don't apply, so don't pay taxes on anything incoming.

And to answer your question, no, this is not a new thing, it has been around since the internet and online shopping started. We have just been very lucky that historically, most bubble mailers slip through unscathed.
 
Last edited:
TanguayFan said:
Marking something as a "gift" really does not mean squat. CRA and CBSA know that people try to use this as a work around to avoid paying taxes.

Personal exemption limit in Canada is $20 CDN purchasing through the mail. Anything over that limit is subject to sales taxes on the value over the $20. If marked as a gift, the limit rises to $60 CDN, and the recipient is responsible for sales taxes on the amount over $60.

And to answer your question, no, this is not a new thing, it has been around since the internet and online shopping started. We have just been very lucky that historically, most bubble mailers slip through unscathed.
Click to expand...

Perfect, thanks. That explains the math on the GST charges.

I guess I've just been lucky to this point!
 
CeddieB said:
Perfect, thanks. That explains the math on the GST charges.

I guess I've just been lucky to this point!
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Yes, we have all been very lucky. CBSA/CRA realize this and are attempting to crack down, which is why you are now seeing taxes being charged on eBay packages, etc.

Sheer volume through Canada Post still works in our favor though, but I am seeing it more and more lately. Eventually, if it gets too bad, it will almost make the Global Shipping Program worthwhile.
 
CeddieB said:
Perfect, thanks. That explains the math on the GST charges.

I guess I've just been lucky to this point!
Click to expand...

I'll say again, just mark it under $20, I always put $15, and have never had to pay anything. You can check off gift or not, doesn't matter.
 
junyab said:
I'll say again, just mark it under $20, I always put $15, and have never had to pay anything. You can check off gift or not, doesn't matter.
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Yep, and good luck filing a claim if it goes missing.

Also, if a seller uses eBay labels, pretty sure it automatically populates the sale price on the label with no ability to overwrite it.
 
TanguayFan said:
Yep, and good luck filing a claim if it goes missing.

Also, if a seller uses eBay labels, pretty sure it automatically populates the sale price on the label with no ability to overwrite it.
Click to expand...

OP was specifically referring to trades and how to avoid customs charges.
 

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