>Dan Cohoe wrote:
> I usually am bringing stuff into Canada, but once I wanted to pass through
> from Eastern Ontario into New York, through Syracuse, then back into Canada
> at Buffalo. Problem was, I had about 20 HP 9000 series 300 machines with me
> coming from Canada. The US Customs agent heard my story, looked at the HP
> plate that said "Made in USA" and sent me on my way to Buffalo.
>
> My experience going the other way has always been that a good explanation of
> what you are doing, a reasonable valuation (more than $0 even if the stuff
> was a gift to you), and a look by the agent at a date sticker or an IC with
> an early eighties or beyond date will convince at least a supervisor that
> the goods have very little value and that the real reason you are doing this
> is because of some weakness in your mental powers.
Jerome Fine replies:
Dan, if you see this, give me a call.
Sometime in the last 3 or 4 years, I went to Detroit and picked up
about 8 VT100/VT220 terminals along with a BA23 box or two -
I can't really remember that long ago. In any case, the stuff was
really dirty and when I went through customs in Canada, all they
needed was to see the date of manufacture on the back as being
in the first half of the 1980s.
The trip took a whole day (Toronto => Detroit => Toronto), but
the gas was really the only cost (plus the tunnel tolls). So it seemed
OK at the time. But I did need to convince the guy at customs that
I was more than a bit crazy in running such old computers - I think
the dirt helped quite a bit.
The following year I went to Cleveland and did the same thing. But
the fellow that gave me the BA123 and the terminals insisted on
cash - $ 10 to balance the books at the company. That actually
was useful at Canadian customs as it was the actual truth.
By the way, shipping into Canada is probably still very easy if
the valuation or "Commercial Invoice" shows less than $ US 12
or more specifically less than $ Can 20 - in that case, the shipment
is noted as being of "Low Value" and goes into Canada under
"Courier Remission" - which translates as NO GST - which
translates as no broker required to clear the shipment since
there is nothing to collect - computer parts having no duty, but
EVERYTHING STILL has GST (7%) applied when it is
coming into Ontario. So a broker is really needed only to
pass on the GST to the Federal Government - a rather sweet
set up that UPS, in particular, takes advantage of.
I image that similar set up applies in the opposite direction,
but the dollar threshold might be different.
Sincerely yours,
Jerome Fine
--
If you attempted to send a reply and the original e-mail
address has been discontinued due a high volume of junk
e-mail, then the semi-permanent e-mail address can be
obtained by replacing the four characters preceding the
'at' with the four digits of the current year.
Received on Thu Oct 03 2002 - 18:39:00 BST