Hi fellow Canadian, I tried to search through this forum, and found several posts indirectly related to this topic, such as: http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=46674 http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12027 They help but do not answer the question I have completely. I know certain ebay store (such as tum68) is willing to declare the racket as a gift and mark it at lower value. Generally, does this avoid Canadian duties at all? If not, how much usually would I be expecting (let's say I buy a $180 racket and have that declared as a gift at $50)? Regard, k
As soon as it is a gift, you should not pay any duties, but you may be asked to pay the federal tax (6%, TPS in french). In fact, you should be asked to pay it... As for the value of the package, when it is not declared as a gift, lower value will mean lower duty, simple as that.
This might answer your question. http://www.canadapost.ca/tools/pg/manual/PGcustoms-e.asp#1378307 http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/import/courier/postal/ind-imp-eng.html The chances of getting charged duty fees is a hit and miss because it is not fully enforced.
However, one thing to keep in mind is, once you declare with lower value, if the package get lost, they will only pay for your declared value. Therefore, you need to carefully evaluate the risk before making a decision.
Generally, when I order stuff from E-bay that well above $100, we tell the seller, when paying them with paypal, to put the value of the item on the declaration form under $20. Actually once we ordered this USB from ebay tha was like only $16. The guy marked the item as a gift but put the value as $60. As a result I had to pay 14.85 (tax, handling and other duties included) when I went to pick up the item at the post offce. But then I argued that I only paid $16, and they gave us a form at the post office to apply against the duties, and we gave them the paypal receipt and got a full refund of the $14.85. I hope this helped~
