Questions about Canadian Customs
 

If i'm away for 6 months or so from asia and bought electronic stuff for about $5000 CAN, how much tax do i have to pay? i've searched and couldnt find the info to figure out the amount. Thanks

AFTER 7 DAYS
You can claim the $750.00 CDN exemption anytime you have been out of Canada for at least 7 days. Former rulings allowed this exemption only once a year.

so does it mean the tax amount is 0.14 X (5000-750)?

IIRC, you'll pay:

GST 5%
PST 7%
duty at whatever rate it is

all on the value of your stuff, less the $750 exemption.

if its personal, and not commercial you pay both gst and pst

if the goods are not made in USA (look at the box, or the items themselves, they will say where they are made) duty is about 7% as well

so for personal, and say its eletronics from japan, you pay 5% gst, 7% pst, 7% duty.

it's for personal, electronics made from malaysia

so is the exemption reduced before or after the gst,pst, & duty?

ie. total $ i have to pay is (5000*0.19)-750 OR (5000-750)*0.19?

Usually there is no duty on electronics.

I think you'll probably just need to pay 5% GST and 7% PST on $4250.

There shouldn't be duty on electronics, depending on where it's from.

What is the item? If it's a laptop or something, just don't claim it

Yea I wouldn't claim it. Correct me if I'm wrong, once you go over $750 the exemption doesn't apply. You just pay taxes on the full amount. This will probably differ from agent to agent though.

You're wrong :D
$750 exemption, and get taxed/dutied on anything after that.

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Regarding claiming stuff - if it's something like a laptop which you could have a plausible story of bringing it over in the first place, you could probably avoid claiming it. It's not "right" but you could do it. If you have a dozen MP3 players or mobile phones... good luck...

Note that I claim no responsibility if you fail to claim your goods, get interrogated, get detained and cavity searched and blacklisted...

Yeah... if you've been gone for six months, it's not going to be overly difficult to bring back a lot of the stuff without claiming it.

they're turntables and a mixer, it's too big to hide them i think

It's not about hiding them... it's about saying they're not new items that you just picked up. You could say you brought them along with you to do a gig in Asia or your cousin gave them to you while you were visiting... something along those lines...

claim it if you don't want to lose it

there are a pdf tables stating all the duty/tariff values for every single item.

http://www.canadacustoms.ca/trade-co...mod-1-eng.html

find the section the best suit your items catagory.
I remember there is no duties on electronics.

if your items have to be dutied, the custom officer has to right to use the tariff table or they can just tell you to pay gst+pst.

as for the exemption, i think if one item goes over 750, the exemption cannot be applied. Exemption only applies to single item value thats below 750 or couple items not exceeding 750. again the officer has to right to do whatever he wants, tax you on the full amount or let you have the 750 deduction.

do not hide or lie at the custom, its not worth it.

why not just mail it back to yourself in canada. and under description, write that out dated stereo.

thats what i did with electroincs clothes.

No duties on your items, regardless of where it's from. See the following chart (I scanned it from my Nexus "category chart". I'm pretty sure your stuff fits in Category 5.

http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/1500/tariff1lb2.jpg http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/4834/tariff2fa3.jpg

I would think its $4250*0.12 = $510 as what you'd be taxed. Make sure you bring receipts to prove the value of the item though.

Actually, you're both right... if the one item, took you over the $750 limit then you get taxed for the item (FULL PRICE)... but if you have multiple items, then you can subtract the $750 from the total of all items!

http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/publicati...56-eng.html#s4

read up, since most of the info in this thread is wrong...

if you live a board for 6m~1year, you are going to buy stuff over $750, obviously
do you pretent they are used from canada, or do you throw them out before coming back in... lol

lol are you for real? why would you even claim electronics? just say you brought them from canada for personal use.