Tariffs, Customs, Duty Etc.

[bill937ca]

Fees and sales tax is charged in Canada as below from the article linked above.

 

Canada's threshold varies — $150 for customs duties, $40 for taxes on courier shipments from the U.S. and Mexico, and $20 for goods from other countries. 

[bill937ca]

I think the de minimus exemption was never meant to be what it is today.  Originally it was probably only those few people who traveled internationally by train or boat.  

 

Now there is a whole export / import industry built around small items sold on eBay and Amazon. Thousands of parcels coming in and nobody knows for sure what is in the package.  These may also be moved at a loss by the post office.

[cteno4]

Yes use to be most international shipping was by slow boat anyway so not something you did everyday like now. Internet kicked it off with ebay and postal deal for cheap small package shipping from china, then the new exporters like Temu, SHEIN, etc have really amplified that. Its been a really fast spiral. 

 

It’s in the millions of packages and a big contraband issue. Again i think the logical thing is an upfront duty payment system that will then allow better tracking and verification of sender to prevent contraband and keep things simpler.

 

Jeff

[RS18U]

2 hours ago, bill937ca said:

Fees and sales tax is charged in Canada as below from the article linked above.

 

Canada's threshold varies — $150 for customs duties, $40 for taxes on courier shipments from the U.S. and Mexico, and $20 for goods from other countries. 

My last parcel (March 28 from PJ) was GST, BC PST and a $10 handling fee.  Shipped Japan Post and paid at the Canada Post office when I picked it up.  Declared value was 118.98 CDN which aligns with what I paid to PJ (plus shipping).  A friend just got an order from Walthers last week, US to Canada with no extra charges, we were all very surprised.  Canada Post delivered to his door too. 

 

And to @cteno4s point of products made one place and shipped from another, will be a big ? with so much still made in China but sold/marketed by others.

[bill937ca]

2 minutes ago, RS18U said:

  A friend just got an order from Walthers last week, US to Canada with no extra charges, we were all very surprised.  Canada Post delivered to his door too. 

There is an exemption under the North American Free Trade deal for small items. It usually shows on the white declaration form.

[Tony Galiani]

As we know, we are living in interesting times.  I have items I would like to get but nothing that I am really anxious for so just planning to sit tight for the foreseeable future.  Do have one pre-order pending and the date on that has changed twice so who knows when that will arrive.  

Wonder how many hobbyists will just cut back for a while to see how this goes?

Tony

[disturbman]

3 hours ago, RS18U said:

And to @cteno4s point of products made one place and shipped from another, will be a big ? with so much still made in China but sold/marketed by others.

I wouldn't expect that to happen, as it would be near impossible to achieve, would require large international compliance and a lot of paperwork, and would be even greater insanity.

[Lessigen]

12 hours ago, Tony Galiani said:

As we know, we are living in interesting times.  I have items I would like to get but nothing that I am really anxious for so just planning to sit tight for the foreseeable future.  Do have one pre-order pending and the date on that has changed twice so who knows when that will arrive.  

Wonder how many hobbyists will just cut back for a while to see how this goes?

Tony

 

Personally, I cancelled a few of my pre-orders to trim spending and changed my mind on a few other pre-orders (i.e. going from the DCC version to DC for some of my NA orders). Being in Canada the tariff situation doesn't directly affect my model train hobby spending (no US-based model train manufacturer orders), but about the general economic climate as my job will likely be affected by a harder-hitting recession so I'd rather have a bit of extra money just in case. I still plan on going through with the majority of my existing orders otherwise, maybe with some extra money set aside for contingencies. In the best case scenario that money isn't needed and I can use it for later hobby stuff or for other things.

[Tony Galiani]

I will confess that I had planned one more order before taking a pause but RG Rokko uses PayPal and, for some reason I could not fathom, my credit card would not work via their (PayPal's) platform.  Fraud alert on the first try then nothing on the second.  So a bunch saved.  I will note for that my order via RG would have run about US$40/50 less than the comparable order via HobbySearch.  At some point, I will see if I can sort this issue out for future reference but not today.

 

BTW, when I went to do the purchase via PayPal, it gave me the option of paying in dollars (automatic choice) or changing it to yen.  At the current conversion rate, paying in yen would have saved me more than US$10.  Tired of this subtle way companies  try to extract more money from everyone.

 

Tony