This is probably something other Canuck members have dealt with, receiving
gear from the States.
I won an auction for some macro flash gear (T-10, T-28, T Power Control) and
the package arrived today. As soon as it arrived, they wanted a pretty hefty
sum of money. I asked them what it was for (since I'd already paid in full
for the gear). A small (but seems too high) chunk of that charge was the
customs fee. I'm not going to even try to challenge that one. The other fee
was good old HST (15 0n NS). So here's a couple questions:
1. I thought that for goods coming from out of province you only had to pay
the federal (GST) portion of the tax, which would be 7%. By doing the math,
there's no way that what they wanted to charge me was 70nless they've
either converted the US value incorrectly or the shipper declared a much
higher value on the items than what I paid.
2. Does the tax apply for used goods? The box was clearly marked that the
items were used.
So far, I haven't accepted the package. I figured it would be easier to
contest the charges with Canada Post rather than try to get a refund from
them. The mail carrier was very good about this, they just gave me the "we
were here, you weren't" slip so I could pick up the package from their
pick-up spot in my area (which strangely enough, isn't the main branch of
the post office, which is a block away from my house but is instead the
small post office in the drug store 4 blocks away).
Any advice here? Can I get around paying the tax or am I stuck?
--
Andrew "Frugal" Dacey,
frugal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.tildefrugal.net/
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