The math ain't mathing

[stalkin_16]

So I want to import a jacket from the USA into Canada.  

Jacket is listed as:

- Item = $149.99 USD ($210.08 CAD)

- Shipping = $28.49 USD ($39.90 CAD).   

So far, $249.98 CAD

Go to shopping cart, an additional $30 CAD import tax is listed (ONLY on this shopping cart page).  Also, pretty sure that should be a 5% tax, so where is $30 on $280 coming from?

Now, $279.98 CAD

Go to check out, additional Duties tacked on of $9.75 USD.

In fact, in the check out, it only gives three charges:

- Item = $149.99 USD

- Shipping = $28.49 USD

- Duties = $9.75 USD

- "Order total" = $210.82 USD

- "Order total in CAD" = $307.60 CAD

Now I ain't no professor of science or anything, but those three costs add up to $179.46 USD.  That leaves an unaccounted $31.36 USD.  

eBay only gives a CAD to USD conversion rate of 1 = 0.68536

xe.com has CAD to USD as 1 = 0.714133

xe.com has USD to CAD as 1 = 1.40030 

So $179.46 USD at that rate is $251.30 CAD

So why is the final checkout total trying to charge me $56.3 CAD more than approximately what it should be based on stated charges?  

[stalkin_16]

I should also mention that I ordered another similar article of clothing from the USA yesterday on ebay.ca.  It has the Item, Shipping, GST/HST and PST/QST listed, all adding up to the correct order total (in USD).  This is how this is how this should work.  No duties included, but may have to pay those on delivery or whatever. 

Point is that I don't know where that additional ~20% got tacked on the other order.

[marnotom!]

I'm a bit confused by some of your mathing.  In your second post, you state that there were line items correctly listed for HST/GST and PST/QST for your purchase, but in your first post you seem to be implying that the jacket you're considering should be subject to 5% GST (?).

What is the jacket's country of origin/manufacture and what province is in the delivery address?

[stalkin_16]

It's going to BC, and the country of origin of the product is USA.  

The point is that these are two different items (in fact, two related pieces of clothing), both being bought from the USA and shipped to Canada, but two different checkout pricing schemes.  The second one makes sense and adds up; the first one does not.  

[marnotom! · Accepted solution]

I've had a purchase that was handled by eBay International Shipping where the math at Checkout didn't make much sense, either, but the total seemed to be fine when I calculated the total the way it's "supposed" to be calculated.

So in your case:

Item price: US$149.99 + mysterious duty charge of US$9.75 = US$159.74

Adjusted item price + BC PST + GST = US$178.81

Shipping:  US$28.49 + BC PST + GST = US$31.91 

Total of adjusted item price and shipping plus taxes:  US$210.72

Converted price using the eBay exchange rate: C$307.46, which is a lot closer to the C$307.60 than what you came up with just the stated charges.

I'm not sure why the Checkout displays the charges the way it does.  There are a lot of servers that do their thing on eBay and my guess is that they're not all running on the same code.  Duties and taxes tend to get conflated quite a bit, and to complicate things they're handled differently in different countries.  eBay sales to areas such as the US, UK, Australia, and EU have taxes charged at Checkout automatically (although often to a certain dollar/sterling/euro amount) even if they're not going through eIS, so the fact that this doesn't automatically occur with sales to Canada may have exposed a glitch in the Checkout coding for the server that your item is going through.

Maybe removing the item from your cart and making the purchase again (perhaps in your browser's "private" or "incognito" mode) will see it going through Checkout differently?  Just a wild guess on my part.

(As for the charge for duty, does it state "USA" for item place of origin/manufacturer in the listing's "Item Specifics" section?  I think that's what the Checkout bot goes by.  If it can't find anything there, it uses "unknown" for that location and bases a duty calculation on that.)

[stalkin_16]

It is probably taxes then at 12%, but it's sketchy that it doesn't show the taxes being applied in this particular checkout cost breakdown while it does in the other.  I don't want to get hit with taxes a second time when it is delivered because it doesn't show it on the receipt.  Also, seems kinda dumb that shipping gets taxed too but whatever.  

The seller is actually in Guam, if that matters.  

As for duty charges, I don't mind that so much since paying that now means not having to deal with that later.  $16 CAD or whatever isn't bad, considering that if this came through Canada Post, they would nail me $10 service fee just for processing duties.

[flipistics]

I wonder if the duty charge is actually a brokerage charge?

[marnotom!]

That was my first thought when I encountered it for the first time, @flipistics, but it seems to add to the pre-tax value of the item.

[fh991586]

Aren't brokerage fees taxable, like handling fees? The 9.75 makes it a fixed amount, unrelated to value of item.