Toronto Photography Meetup Group

I've bought several things on Ebay and other websites from Asia (China, HK, Japan) and I don't ever remember paying any Canadian taxes? Is this the same experience for everyone else?

Btw, I'm not complaining

Nope. Nothing at all.

Only had to pay taxes on bigger items from the States.

me neither

no taxes.

Pay cash, no tax, no tax.

lol

Bought two lenses from different Japanese eBay retailers recently. Had to pay taxes on one, no taxes on the other .. It's hit or miss.

How did you pay the taxes? To the seller or shipping company?

I rarely buy anything more than $100- from the Far East, but I've probably had 100's of items, most under the $20- exemption.

I've had to pay taxes numerous times for stuff shipped from the US and Eastern Europe.

sellers can't collect taxes from foreign buyers, the taxes are only paid to the local government, either directly or through carrier.
Never bought anything of value more than $150 from Asia, but most of them declare goods of much less value than they are, thus no tax

I've asked some "power seller" if I need to pay an additional fee for the duties and taxes, they replied that usually there will be no more duties paid because they are sending the units (or camera stuffs) as a "gift" on its shipping notes I believe... I dunno, maybe it has an impact or not but so far haven't paid any duties and taxes for all my ebay transactions in Asia (mostly china and hongkong)....

I paid the postman: Canadapost, UPS, Fedex and most carriers accept credit cards at the door. Cheers.

Thanks. I suppose I've been lucky then .. knock on wood.

Indeed do, because UPS could surprise you in the mail a week after

I've paid taxes through UPS before but all the stuff I get from Asia are usually regular post and have been lucky with those. Another reason to to try to avoid UPS/Fedex/Purolator

$20 filters from Maxsaver = NO
$50 filters from Maxsaver = YES
$600 fisheye lens from Japan = YES
$500 Casio watch from Japan = NO (helped that it was declared as an $8 figurine)

All delivered through Canada Post.

It's hit or miss and it all depends on the value declared and what it was declared as.

Sums it up exactly!

O ordered a $400 Minolta lens from Japan and had to pay $11 to Canada Post so that wasn't too bad.

Got UPS raped last summer, $90 duty/taxes on a $500 lens from HongKong. On the plus side, i just got a $900 lens from Japan shipped EMS and only had to pay $25 duty/taxes. I guess it balances out.

$90 on $500 is 18%; your seller probably declared it as "camera accessories" (5% duty), and also the usual 13% GST+PST applied. Were you expecting to avoid the tax?

I normally give my sellers the harmonized tax code to put on the parcel so the incorrect duty doesn't happen. And if I get through without paying tax, I consider myself lucky!

I've had customs grossly over value items before during assessment, and i have had sellers stupidly undervalue stuff before(declared $25 for camera lens ) It's always hit or miss, but ya, always going to be taxed, it's just the assessed value for taxation that's the gamble.