Shipping through customs Canada<->USA...Was : NeXT slabs, recent finds and a request

From: Claude.W <claudew_at_videotron.ca>
Date: Sat Apr 14 02:21:37 2001

Never been so complicated for me.

A simple (10 secs to fill out) declaration going TO USA attached to package
and the same for people shipping me stuff..

Never a problem...

When I have very heavy stuff I have it shipped near the border at a friends
PO BOX in NY state and pick it up myself and bring it through customs. Then
you can explain and show its obsolete face-to-face with customs agent. Never
a problem there too...

I must have a honest looking face...

Claude

----- Original Message -----
From: Jerome Fine <jhfine_at_idirect.com>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Friday, April 13, 2001 10:50 PM
Subject: Re: NeXT slabs, recent finds and a request


> >McFadden, Mike wrote:
>
> > Surviving customs
> > My experience when shipping through customs you must make sure that you
> > don't say it's "worthless", they think you are lying. I have tried
saying
> > "used medical equipment" but they translated that to "medical waste". I
> > ended up with "sterile out of date medical equipment that is composed of
> > stainless steel and plastic". Actually supplying the least amount of
> > information is probably smartest. Try to avoid mention of the
> > "radioactive" or in our case "non-radioactive" word. I suspect that any
> > mention of any form of the "drug" word would also be a stupid.
Mentioning
> > that it will be used for educational purposes may have helped.
>
> Jerome Fine replies:
>
> My experience with customs is ONLY from the US to Canada! If you (who
> are reading) are interested in this one aspect, read on.
>
> In line with what Mike suggested, I recommend that you ALWAYS attach
> some minimum value. There is a threshold for imports into Canada from the
> US, however, which is important. In general, due to free trade, most
stuff,
> in particular computer stuff with the country of origin being the US, does
not
> have any duty or taxes other than GST (federal Goods and Services Tax).
> If you are an ordinary person (not a company), then for Ontario and many
> provinces, there is the PST (Provincial Sales Tax). For some provinces,
> there is an HST (Harmonized Sales Tax) which I don't have much experience
> with since I live in Ontario. For Ontario, the PST is 8% and the GST is
7%
> for a total of 15% (there are not added to each other). However, most
> businesses in Ontario have a PST exemption, so for a business, only the
GST
> is charged, and for individuals, the full 15% is charged - both GST and
PST.
>
> But, there is a threshold - for a business (and probably the same for an
> individual) of $ CAN 20.00 which means that if the GST is less than
> $ CAN 1.40, customs will rate the shipment as "low value" and the GST
> is not collected - which means that the shipment goes through as a
> "courier remission". In general, these days, I attempt to keep the value
> under $ US 12.00 to qualify. So if ordering from eBay, if the value
> is too high, I rarely bother. Note that this $ US 12.00 includes ONLY
> the actual contents, not shipping, handling or insurance.
>
> If I am having something sent, I usually have the value set at at least $
US 5.00
> rather than zero since that seems much more reasonable to customs.
However,
> I recently made a real purchase of $ US 11.00 of a disk drive and
cartridges
> which weighed about 50 lb. and it was held for a week until customs
finally
> agree to let it through. From what I heard, the documentation was not
> satisfactory and they initially refused to believe that a shipment that
cost three
> times as much for shipping was worth so little and weighed so much.
>
> The documentation required in all cases is a "Commercial Invoice" with the
> minimum being (in 4 copies usually):
> Name and address and phone number of Vendor
> Name and address and phone number of Customer
> Actual cost of the goods being shipped and a detailed breakdown
> Country of origin of the goods
>
> When sent via USPS, usually the GREEN customs CN-22 is sufficient.
>
> Note that for most shippers (UPS and FedEx included as far as I know),
> when the shipment is sent via air, the shipping cost includes the
brokerage
> charge for clearing the shipment, which is EXTREMELY important when
> the cost is above $ US 12.00 since both these carriers seem to charge
> much more than the difference between ground shipping costs and air
> (slowest 2-4 days) costs. So, if the shipment is going to incur GST
> charges (which for a business are essentially refundable in any case),
> it is almost always best to ship by air which means that the only extra
> charge for a business is the GST.
>
> Note that these answers are from personal experience with both UPS
> and FedEx over the past two years with shipments both less than and
> greater than $ US 12.00 and by air as well as ground plus USPS for
> only ground shipments. By the way, FedEx via air seems quite hard
> on the boxes since the last two 60 lb. boxes that arrived (both about
> 2 ft. cubes) were almost totally broken to the point that one box was
> ready to let the popcorn padding out one of the broken seams on the
> side of the box. Fortunately, the vendor had packed the box very
> well and the contents (that optical disk drive and cartridges) were
> not damaged.
>
> I hope this helps anyone sending from the US to Canada.
>
> I will answer any other questions if there is anything I have not covered.
>
> Sincerely yours,
>
> Jerome Fine
>
Received on Sat Apr 14 2001 - 02:21:37 BST