Canadian purchasing case from US Vendor

If you are from Canada and purchased a case from the US how much duty did not pay? Does anyone know how it works (any customs brokers out there)? I would like to know because I would like to calculate total costs. My friend purchases a case aprox $200 CAD and he had to pay $100 duty.

You've got to be kidding me.

I just ordered a 200 dollar case from the US. If it shows up and I have to pay 100 bucks duty i'm gonna flip

From what I understand, there are no duties on cases. That $100 is probably the "brokerage fee" that UPS charges. The brokerage fee is the fee that UPS charges for doing the customs paper work that's required for all imports into Canada. It's a rip off, I know.

I spent around $850 USD at directron and when i got it UPS gave me a bill for $275+ CAD. Remember some of that is tax and then the rest duty charges and what not. IT sucks I know, try to find a place here in canada to save cash. I found this place based in Vancouver that has a pretty good selection on most of the stuff you can find from the states......

http://www.ntcw.com/

Yep, the "brokerage fee" that UPS charges is insane, I just ordered at Excaliber, and another $88 CDN was tacked on due to the fee, GST, and PST =P

Here's the UPS website for calculating brokerage fees for Importation into Canada
http://www.ups.com/canada/using/software/currentrates/engcustoms_rates.html

A trick to get around it would be to ship your purchase to a friend in the United States, and have them ship it to you listed as a gift, which would get around all of the customs fees

The biggest tip is never to have anything sent UPS. The carrier that www.compgeeks.com uses always values the goods right and only charges $3 CAN customs clearance. The carrier that www.outpost.com uses is also very good. They are not one of the big ones though, smaller independants.

Buying stuff off eBay is a hassle though. No matter how nicely you ask the seller not to ship UPS, and not to mark up the value on the customs form to the value of insurance, 6 out of 10 times they will ship UPS instead of USPS air or whatever you thought you agreed on, "because it was the same price" or "because the difference was only 50c" they seem incapable of understanding that between UPS and USPS the difference is like $50 out of your pocket at the door and it is not funny when it was only a $20 item. I'm reduced to saying that I'll refuse delivery of UPS and bounce the credit card charge.

I keep asking "mark what I paid for it on the form" and "put this printout of the auction in the top of the box" then theoretically if customs open it they shouldn't revalue it. Some sellers will take this to mean you want to try and avoid tax, so will put "parts" $5 on the customs form. Canadian customs reopens it, sees the Pentium classic motherboard in there, picks a price from like compusa for a top spec board, charges tax on that.......

It really ticks me when there's like $200 free insurance on the shipping method, and people put like $199.99 on the damn customs form when it was a $20 sale.

Anyway, if your friend has all the receipts etc, and the overcharge was the fault of customs and not courier clearance fees, then you can reclaim it.

I think here in Ontario I only pay one of the taxes, so arriving USPS on that $200CAD case I'd only pay something like 7-8% so $16 tops.

How to avoid taxes in Canada is to order out of province within Canada, I've ordered from BC and Manitoba, the tax break is sometimes more than the shipping. So you're saving money even compared to having a super cheap retailer right next door that you can pickup from.

Road Warrior

Road Warrior you'll pay 15% tax on that item. I order from US a lot and always get slapped with taxes. Recently though i've been having goods shipped to my aunt in New York then have her ship it to me. That way I avoid 15% tax on goods.

I'm sure we only pay GST, oh well.