Canadian tariffs, duties, etc?

Well, it wasn't that much of a hassle for me on the east coast. BAX faxed me the paperwork to my office. I walked into the Customs office downtown. Virtually no line up. They asked a few questions about the goods, checked the exchange rate on the day of shipping and figured out the duty and taxes. You could pay with Visa, Interac, bank draft etc. Took less than 10 minutes. Then, I faxed back the papers to BAX and then they shipped the goods to my house. THe only hassle, I needed to find two strong guys help unload and uncrate the 200 lb speakers, to meet the Bax driver. I am not sure how much FedEx or UPS would have charged for doing that. Besides, in the past I have had camera gear sit days until the brokerage firm processed it.

Tax and duties are charged by Canadian Gov to Canadains. US seller has nothing to do with it. Canadian buyer like me should always take care the tax and duty if it occur, but I don't know why sometimes US sellers are hesitate to sell stuff to Canadian.

Canada Post charge $5 for brokerage and I never lost my stuff. Fedex and USPS charge you based on the value of the goods. Fedex just charged me $15 for a $50 s-video cable. USPS is worse. 2 years ago I sent a $800 cd player to US for warranty repair. Without telling me when I shipped the item UPS charged me $50 each way for brokerage fee, then they told me they lost my cd player. I also went to their depot in Canada. The working environment is bad. I saw the workers taking 15 min break outside and everybody is tired, quite and no expression on their face. They all looks like illegal immigrant in the labour camp.

I agreed with other people on ebay and audiogon. Always use USPS when ship cross the border. Fedex is your 2nd choice and never use UPS.

There is no duty and tax if the value of the item is less than $20 when you ship with Canada Post. I never got charged when I buy CD or DVD from US.

Note: Canada Post brokerage fee has been raised to $8.00 from $5.00. Still a good deal compared to the robbers at UPS.

I was still charged $5.80 brokerage fee from Postal Canada this week.