Global Shipping Program no duty/taxes charged. Will there be a delay or request for more payment?

[gene2u]

Hi everyone, glad to tap
Into your expertise! I bought an iPad, and picked one from the Global Shipping Program that surprisingly had no extra duty charges. I was happy to choose it for that reason, but almost immediately after paying I thought “Uh-oh, this is going to come back to bite me.” Similar listings have additional import fees, so I’m wondering if Pitney Bowes will flag me for extra charges and delays. I guess they probably have some mechanism for collecting more money from me? I guess I’ll find out shortly!

[femmefan1946]

Canadians who import goods are assessed duty on any items valued over $20Cdn, and pay sales taxes based on that value whether there is duty or not.

How much did you pay for the iPad? Was it over $20Cdn (~$15USD) ?

I know that's a stupid question.

GSP/Pitney Bowes also charges a ~$5USD service charge, but that seems to be waived when there will be no duty or sales tax.

If the iPad were made in a country which has a Free Trade Agreement with Canada (like the USA or Vietnam or Germany) there would be no duty.  There would still be sales tax, though.

It's possible that the seller though that because Apple is a US company that there would be no duty on their products. Many make that mistake.

I have no idea how GSP handles such errors. Be ready to pay the duty + tax on your doorstep, but it might not be charged.

[marnotom!]

Tablets are only subject to GST or HST when imported by PB through the GSP. (Does that sentence need any more acronyms? 😜)

I'm looking at this listing which, for me, shows $0 in "import charges":

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/371755393228

The shipping is sitting at C$27.80. Take 5% of the selling price for GST, take it off the shipping price and you're still left with a decent amount of moola for getting the item shipped from Kentucky to Canada as well as Pitney Bowes' processing fee.

This is assuming that the item ships from the seller to Kentucky for free, mind you. Bear in mind I'm looking at this on my phone. What you see on a desktop or notebook may differ a bit.

[marnotom! · Accepted solution]

Addendum to my post:

I changed the storage capacity of the iPad and added it to my shopping cart. The higher the storage capacity, the higher the price of the iPad, and the higher the shipping price.

I didn't really make this point clear in my previous post, so I'll do it here: There is no such thing as a GSP-forwarded item with no "import charges" (which are whatever Pitney Bowes calculates will cover the GST/HST and duty it pays on your behalf, various processing fees, and a little pad in case it messes up). If you see a listing with "$0" in import charges, all that means is that those charges have been added to the shipping charge instead. Even for items valued at less than C$20.01.

[gene2u]

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@marnotom! wrote:

There is no such thing as a GSP-forwarded item with no "import charges" (which are whatever Pitney Bowes calculates will cover the GST/HST and duty it pays on your behalf, various processing fees, and a little pad in case it messes up). If you see a listing with "$0" in import charges, all that means is that those charges have been added to the shipping charge instead. Even for items valued at less than C$20.01.

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Apologies for the late reply, but I think you have this exactly right.  Your research into the lower- vs higher-priced iPads was instructive: apparently if they are able to put enough fees into the shipping, the import portion isn't needed.

Since I had shipped it to relatives, I wasn't there to receive the package, but was told there were no additional costs at delivery (post office).

Thank you both for your answers, I'm happy to finally confirm your hunches here so that if anyone else has the same question in the future, they can find the answer here.