2. amps-preamps
  3. 1034360019

25 customs/tax fee to ship audio to Canada ??

Hi folks:
I sold my Sonic Frontiers Line 3 to a buyer in Canada about three weeks ago. I'm located in California and the buyer is in Ontario, Canada. I find that Canadian customs are holding the preamp, and want about $700CDN in customs/fees/tax before relinquishing the used preamp, which was declared and insured for $2,500USD. To me this excessive charge has been very surprising. Have others had the same experience? Are there ways to contest or overcome this problem? It would seem to make prohibitive any Canadian purchase of gear from the US. The whole problem is particularly disturbing given that one would think that there is such a thing as NAFTA. Also, the Line 3 is manufactured in Canada, and marked clearly as such on the paperwork. FedEx Ground was the shipper in this instance. Anyway, any advice would be welcome. Thanks!!!
outlier

Showing 1 response by take_five_audio

take_five_audio
6 posts
 
If you declared the value at $2500.00 USD I would say that most of that $700 is made up of tax. At the current rate of exchange $2500.00 USD is about $3967.50 CDN, tax here in Ontario is 15%, this makes the tax portion alone $595.00 CDN. Along with some brokerage fees and the usual processing fees I can see the total hitting $700.00 no problem. In this case duties are most likely not a factor unless the NAFTA forms were not properly filled out. When things are shipped from the US to Canada by courier you are almost certainly going to end up paying your provincial and federal sales tax.

Gene
More to discover