Buying from Canada!

Years ago I purchased Focal speakers from a distributor (not Focal itself) in Canada.  Years later the California Board of Equalization caught up with me and I had to pay a couple hundred in customs.  Recently I purchased two items from Bryston and two items from Focal (its Canadian office) and there were no charges. Go figure!

I had a recent experience with something like this. It depends on the value of the item. If it is over $3000 , the package will be held up by customs at the shipping company level. The end buyer will have to fill out a form, provide personal information, and declare intention for the product shipped (or, personal use, resale, etc). My wife ordered a timepiece for me from Switzerland, the watch took 3 months to make, then shipped via fedex. All the paperwork was in order with the manufacturer. Us customs held up the package for 3 weeks at fedex with no notice to me whatsoever. After many long discussions, I finally had to fill out the customs form and the package was delivered. There were no additional taxes or fees applied. 
  My advice with any shipping from outside the us is to follow the progress of the package carefully. It’s possible you might get lucky and all will go fine. If the item is over 3k, it probably will get caught. Pay the fees and keep records and receipts in case of a charge later on. 
  Until this instance I never had a problem with shipping from overseas. Just a sign of the times I guess. Hopefully you won’t have the experience I did. Enjoy your new speakers.

OK, thinking outside the box here but Vancouver is such a beautiful place, would it be possible to drive up and get them directly? I drove from Connecticut to Ottawa a few years ago, and it was good fun, and it assured the large a/d/s M12 speakers I was buying wouldn't be damaged in transit. I was super clear to the border guard what I was doing and no customs charge was issued. YMMV. 

With the exchange rate right now, Canadian purchases can deliver excellent value. 

Is not the Ca Board of Equalization collecting sales tax ? They are aggressive on everything thing now , but it’s simply sales tax collected on out of state items. And please no political bantering.