Paying taxes/duty on used goods purchased in Canada


Please let me know if I will have to pay any additional taxes etc...on a $6000 set of used speakers purchased from a seller in Canada. They will ship UPS.

Thanks for any insight my fellow Agoners.
128x128grannyring
The question about where the speakers were made is the most important one. If they were made in England you will be paying import duty in addition to any shipping and brokerage fees. If they had been made in Canada there would be no duty because Canada is one of the members of NAFTA.

I bought a pair of Proac speakers, made in England, from a seller in British Columbia and drove them across the border to Seattle. At the U.S. customs office at the border I had to spend an hour waiting for a customs officer to go through thousands of product listings in a book that looked like the Manhattan phone directory. She eventually gave up and asked me what I’d paid for the speakers ($1,400) and she assigned a duty of something like $200, which was totally arbitrary, of course. So, there’s a certain amount of uncertainty in the process.

I'm not sure how you would accomplish it but getting an answer in advance from U.S. customs could avoid an unpleasant surprise.
I bought 2 used pieces of equipment from Canada several years ago, a phono pre-amp and a CD player. In both cases the seller lived near the border and drove the items into the US and shipped them. They said the border guards never checked. Of course that depends on the  check point. One seller said the US site was the nearest FedEx site and people did this all the time, especially for eBay sales. Might be harder with speakers.
How about the actual fee schedule (assumed current):

https://www.ups.com/content/us/en/shipping/cost/zones/customs/fees.html

If it's like importing into Canada, you will have to pay the brokerage plus a disbursement fee and a COD fee.

Duties - I don't know, but would assume at least 6%.  Taxes - depends on were you live.

Just assume the worst, and if the deal still makes sense, go for it.
Riffer makes a good point about preparing for the worst because it is like a roller coaster, once you go over the top, you are no longer in control.  Best case is probably that you pay brokerage only, which I get charged for even small purchases from Partsconnexion, unless they are shipped by postal service. Some years ago, I believe it was around a hundred bucks or so for a SF preamp.  The NAFTA comments are valid but I would add, from experience, they are picky about the documentation being on a specific form and executed by the manufacturer, otherwise it may do you no good that they were manufactured in Canada.  One scenairo I have no experience with is shipping by a commercial carrier (I.e., a trucking company), although I would expect similar issues.
Looks like under $50 based on the link provided by Riffer. No duties, just this brokerage fee it looks like.