How to avoid paying customs fees?
 

Lately I have been forced to pay customs fees on cards coming into Canada from the United States. Is there anything I could specify to sellers to mark on my packages to keep these fees down or disappear completely. I have never had to pay customs fees before, but all of a sudden I've had to pay three times this week!!! Are there any other Canadian members on Net54 that have had similar problems and could help me out?

Hello Jeff,

There is no such thing as "customs fees". In most cases, on the retail purchase of an item entering Canada from any other country, you could possibly be subject to 3 different amounts you would have to pay.

First, there is sales tax. Depending on your province, you have to pay your provincial rate of tax plus GST. In my experience, if the item is shipped via USPS (if from the USA) they don't bother with small value items - I can't recall ever paying taxes on anything worth less than $50.00. Also, if the item is a gift, there should be no tax. The sender has to declare the item as a gift. The customs people don't have to accept that at face value, and the sender could be in some trouble if the item is falsely declared as a gift.

Second there is import duty. This does not apply on sports cards printed in the US or Canada. This should not be charged, and in my experience it isn't.

Third, there are fees charged by the carriers for their "service" in importing your item(s). This is one reason to always prefer USPS. If there is no tax payable, USPS charges no fee at all - Canada Post just delivers it. If there is tax payable, they hit you for a $5.00 fee (supposedly for documentation, etc.). FedEx charges more for the same thing - in the range of $10-$15.00. And UPS are the ultimate bandits, charging up to $40.00 for the same thing - I never, ever use them.

Cheers,
Blair

The US customs forms require us to state under penalty of perjury that the item is whatever we describe it as being. Sorry, but I do not think it is right to ask a seller to break his country's law so the buyer can save a few bucks in taxes.

I've always requested that Canadian buyers move to the US before I send them the card. I've only had about a 35% success rate, though.

In addition, it's unpatriotic not to pay customs tax.

I agree with Adam, 100%! Never try to avoid whatever fees, taxes, or duties are actually owed. It's not worth it.

Now, if there is some dispute about how they are classifying something, then get it straightened out, but don't try to avoid what's owed.


Now..., if you choose to disregard that advice, at least don't talk about it on a public message board.

I agree completely.

Cheers,
Blair

I once marked the customs declaration "repatriated items returning to homeland" and got away with it.

They were C46 Imperial Tobacco Canadian baseball cards. :D

Boston Tea Party 2010!

Thanks for the clarification. I wasn't sure what to call these different fees. Instead of calling them "customs fees" i'll call them "taxes". I never gave this subject any thought before because I have never had to pay these taxes. I just found it strange that I all of a sudden had to pay three times in the same week when I haven't had to pay once in over a year. Would Canada Post be targeting me specifically or is this just bad luck on my part. The card I paid $600.00 for (seller marked the value at 480.00) slipped through but lately I am having to pay $13.00 in import taxes on a $60.00 card.

And then there's the guy (who will remain nameless) who has me ship to a buddy in the U.S. just across the border and then he comes over and picks up his cards.

Hi Steve,

This could be a very legitimate arrangement. When Canadians go into the US and stay for a period of time, they acquire the right to bring goods back with them (tax and duty free shopping limits). After 48 hours in the US, those limits are significant. So if he stays at his buddy's place for the weekend, he would have the right to bring back some cards without any tax payable.

Cheers,
Blair

I have the answer. All American sellers can move to Canada. A six pack of Steam Whistle and a nice toque will be waiting for you upon entry, eh!

Wow - that is rare in my experience...they don't always bother with such small amounts. But the quick math tells me they probably hit you for the $5.00 carrier's fee plus your taxes in Ontario (provincial tax plus GST). That would total around the amount you paid.

Cheers,
Blair

Hosers!:)

Take off, eh! :D

A nice "toque"????


Is that like "One Toque Over the Line Sweet Jesus"? Seems that might cause trouble at the border! :D

Avoiding fees
 

I have found that anything with a declared value of over $100 is going to get taxed. Anything less has been hit and miss, for me at least.

What I think is important, though, is to make certain the seller puts the declared value as the price that you paid and not the BOOK value.

That's what I thought too. But in December I had a package with a declared value of $480.00 slip through without having to pay any taxes on it. This past week, I have had 3 packages with a declared value of around $50.00-$60.00 each that taxes had to be paid on before I could claim them.

I recently ended up paying (as the buyer) UPS $32.75 in brokerage fees for a package of cards I received from a Canadian seller. (The seller had to pay UPS up front for shipping etc., but neither of us had any idea about these brokerage fees coming due to me). Luckily I dealt with a seller (thanks Richard) who was thoughtful and considerate enough to reimburse me with a couple of cards to make up for the fees I had to pay but I wanted to give a shout out to anyone considering using UPS to send a shipment of cards from Canada to the US. Highway robbery! :mad:

not just UPS...i've received packages from germany and had to pay fees with fedex (about 10% of value). from reading the fedex invoice they paid a minimal amount at customs...and jacked up the premium about 3x in billing me.

{edit out a political rant between usa and rest of world :o}i try to keep my dealings domestically now...GOD BLESS AMERICA.

Anything sent by Canada Post that has a value for duty over $20, Canada Post gets to charge $5.00 to collect the HST. Many times Canada Post will feel that the small amount of tax collected is not worth the trouble, and deliver the item without collecting the tax.

As others have said, the value for duty has to be properly declared. It is an offence to do otherwise. (I don't need more clients)

Max

Max is correct.... it is $20 cdn value. They are more lenient with it now then they used to be. Back when ebay first started, they used to open my packages and assign values to my items. I once bought a 10$ card but the customs people assigned a $1200 price tag on it after they assessed its value and guess what value they taxed me on. Even though i proved to them their mistake, i was told it was too bad! I filed to get my money back but it never came!

No one has ever refuse to put down the declared value i asked them to, but a few here seem to have issue with it. I have a US friend for such instances should they ever occur.

To me, collecting taxes on a second hand item shouldn't be allowed, its double dipping at its finest. And if trying to avoid paying more taxes then i already do makes me a bad person, then so be it! The gov't already bends me over daily!

It happens. Same thing happens here. I won't get bothered with customs fees for a year or longer and then all of a sudden i will get hit with 4 straight customs fees. Not much you can do as most US sellers dont want to break the law by lying on customs declarations.

Edit- I wanted to also mention that every few months i will make a big card purchase (well big to me anyways :)) of over $500 and never once have they dinged me on one of these big purchases. It seems that they only get me on purchases under $100.

Usps
 

Here is one other thing that could affect the fees. On small, light items, a small 2976 customs form is applied, and no duty is normally assessed on these.

On larger boxes (more than 36 inches length & girth, the large 2976a form is used. These large forms are also used on most International Priority and Express items. All of these 2976a are entered by the Postal Clerks directly into the Customs Service website so there may be a greater chance that the customs service will assess the fees.

Rick

That could be the explanation, different forms and services being handled differently.

If they only knew how much small valuable stuff crosses borders without any customs forms. My local post office sometimes would tell me my packed item was too much like a letter to need a form. I usually filled out the small one anyway. But I've recieved stamps that were sent in letters or greeting cards. I haven't been charged duty on any stuff I've bought from overseas, maybe USPS is just too lazy or overworked to bother?

Funny thing dealing with customs. A friend of mine bought a big batch of films from Australia. Since it came into Boston as freight he asked if it was worth the price a customs service wanted to "clear it through" Something like $250. I told him we'd do it ourselves since it was local. At customs, the clerk told us the film wasn't a duty item, but the 2 basically junk projectors were. A few thousand in films, and essentially crate filler of projectors. And the shipper hadn't broken out the value. After they had a bit of talk back and forth I offered the thought that perhaps the customs clerk could solve the value problem by assigning a value that customs would find acceptable. After a brief bit of math she assigned a value of about $500 to the projectors. Total duty about $75. My friend asked if I thought that was fair and I told him to pay her before she changed her mind and assigned the full value of the whole shipment. I've seldom seen Govt paperwork get finished as quickly nor a Govt clerk actually seeming happy while filling out forms.:)

The whole thing took less than an hour including loading at the terminal.

Steve B

Hi Bob,

A sad and all-too-common story.

As I implied earlier in this thread, for any international shipment, never ever use UPS.

Cheers,
Blair

These fees are crap. When are the hockey card cartels gonna smarten up and dig tunnels?