Basically the scenario I'm imagining is, eBay docks the tax, item arrives, and you get nailed again for tax and duties via CBSA. Now if they don't collect sales tax on behalf of the CRA then there's no double issue north of the border. Checking my last few domestic sales I don't see any forced HST on the buyer.
First eBay doesn't dock/collect the tax and duty.
The GSP collects import fees and pays the Canadian government. When the GSP shipment arrives in Canada those are already marked as paid.
The package doesn't come in individually, btw, what CBSA sees is a locked container and a manifest showing contents and payment. (They can open it if they want. But that's unlikely.)
item arrives, and you get nailed again for tax and duties via CBSA.
That does happen from time to time, but usually when the SELLER did not follow instructions and, rather than shipping to the GSP plant, somehow shipped directly to the buyer via USPS/Canada Post. (or occasionally by a courier like UPS).
So the buyer had paid GSP the import fees.
But the seller did not send to the GSP.
CBSA has the single package arrive in Canada, assesses duty and sales tax and Canada Post collects those before handing over the package.
Not the fault of the GSP . Nothing to do with eBay. The SELLER made the error.
Checking my last few domestic sales I don't see any forced HST on the buyer.
I say 'sales taxes' on purpose, because we don't have HST in BC, and AB has only GST.
Unless you are registered to collect HST in Ontario and the other HST provinces, you wouldn't.
Only if you are registered, and then you add those taxes to your invoice to your customer and you remit the money you receive.
You don't collect taxes you cannot remit. The Revenue get testy about that.
EBay does not collect Canadian sales taxes.
EBay does, in fact is required, to collect US state sales taxes. You may see those on your American customer's PP/MP invoice. Both will charge you, the seller, 3.7% of that American state sales tax as part of the processing fee on the entire customer payment including product, shipping and those taxes that you never touch.
so I can't really say if I've been charged HST (ON) from a direct import or domestic non GSP sale.
If your purchase is valued under $150Cdn, you will not pay any duty. If it is more the duty will be assessed by CBSA at the border and collected by Canada Post, who will add $9.95 as a service charge.
If your purchase is valued over $40, you will be charged Canadian sales taxes (HST in Ontario) on the same basis. Including the $9.95 service charge.
You will be charged sales tax even if the import is duty free.
Shall we complicate matters?
Those charges are as of July 1, 2020.
Before that the allowance was a mere $20 for both duty and tax.
But CBSA decided that it would cost more to assess and collect the pennies for a $20.01 import than would be collected, so their practice was to ignore low value imports.
And since the cross-border shopper could drive home with $200 worth of stuff in her car, most mail order/ online shoppers did not realize how low the actual allowance was.
Until she bought from a company that used UPS or another private courier that legally had to charge every penny the law required.
Archived somewhere is a thread of complaints about that which is some 5000 posts long and was active for nearly 10 years.
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