Question about EIS and Tariff Amount - How much as a buyer am I expected to pay?

[ch_297335]

I am looking to bid on some magic the gathering playing cards from a seller on ebay.com located in Texas.

I am located in Canada in the province of Ontario.

The seller users eBay International Shipping.

On the listing is a duties section that says Estimate, final at checkout.

Before putting a bid can anyone give me an idea of what I would be expected to pay for duties on a such an item?

Let say I am the winning bid and it ends at $100 USD.

The shipping is $22.74 USD

I honestly just want to get some kinda of idea what I would be expected to pay for this type of item before bidding.

Also is there any type of calculator I can use to determine the tariffs/taxes for items shipped with eBay International Shipping?

[fh991586 · Accepted solution]

Retaliatory tariffs will add a minimum of 25% of your declared value IF the country of origin is indicated as USA*, and the sale taxes will be calculated on top of that. Considering today's rate at 1.38 USD to CAD, here's a breakdown of what you can expect to pay:

$100 USD = $138 CAD

25% retaliatory tariff = $34.5 CAD

13% sale taxes in Ontario (calculated AFTER the tariffs jump) = $22.43

$22.74 USD = $31.41 CAD

TOTAL: $226.34 CAD

*The problem here is that we don't know where those cards were printed, so it would affect the tariffs element...

[ch_297335 · Accepted solution]

The cards were made and printed in Belgium by the card company called Cartimundi and imported into the USA and various countries to be sold to be sold. I would assume that because this is not a USA made/produced item it would not recieve a 25% tariff. The question is how do I communicate this to the seller if they are unaware of the country of origin as Belgium?

[reallynicestamps · Accepted solution]

Assume that your US seller will not cooperate and may cancel the sale if you ask. Both worst case scenarios. In the first case, you pay the unnecessarily high import fees. Actually it's worse, since there is a good chance the seller will use a private courier rather than the postal system and the service fee will be $25Cdn or more instead of the postal service fee of $9.95Cdn. And of course if the seller cancels the sale, you don't get your cards and have to shop elsewhere. Are they also sold in Belgium?

[reallynicestamps · Accepted solution]

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/hockey/article-trading-card-hobby-in-canada-impacted-by-mount...

[marnotom! · Accepted solution]

@reallynicestamps, the OP mentioned in their question that the cards are listed as being forwarded through eBay International Shipping and that the auction listing has a line item for "duties." Listings where the seller ships directly (or more directly) to the buyer don't have an estimate for "duties" on the listing page.

@ch_297335, items forwarded through eBay International Shipping go through a customs pre-clearance process at the Illinois hub. For the cards to be recognized as being produced in Belgium, there has to be information from the seller to prove that.  I don't know how hard-assed Canada Border Services is going to be about "country of origin" information in these days of retaliatory tarrifs.  Information in the listing's "Item Specifics" section probably sufficed once upon a time, but the hub may need actual documentation to work with now, otherwise the shipment may dead-end at the hub.  Are the cards going to be in packaging that gives the manufacturing information?  Does the seller have "Belgium" stated as the item's country of manufacture in the "Item Specifics" section of the listing?

[ch_297335 · Accepted solution]

Thank you everyone for their help. The cards in question were made in 1993 to 1995 by the playing card manufacturer Carta Mundi in Belgium. The physical wrapper that the cards originally came in state "Printed in Belgium" as does the 36 pack booster box. The actual cards themselves have no labeling except the artist who drew the art for the card, the year on the bottom of the card when it was producted and the expansion symbol of the set. Sadly there is nothing to indicate this card was printed and came from Belgium even though it is. I have never shipped anything to anyone before and I am new to ebay. As a seller how would you indicate this is a product made in Belgium? Is there a code you enter on the shipping label? Do you need to have the invoice show this? Basically what I am trying to ask is how do I as seller let CBSA (Canada Border Revenue Agency) know this is a Belgium product and not a USA product when it is shipped.

[marnotom! · Accepted solution]

@ch_297335, for an item forwarded by eBay International Shipping, it might be travelling across the border as part of a larger consolidated shipment and what will be reviewed by Canada Border Services is a shipping manifest, or a list of items that make up this bunch of parcels clustered together on a pallet or similar arrangement. The manifest will likely have a short description of the item (possibly the listing title) and/or a code number corresponding to the type of item it is, the transaction value of the item, and the item's country of origin/manufacture.

Since eIS is responsible for the accuracy of this information, it's probably going to come down to somebody at the Illinois hub making a judgement call as to whether the information provided by the seller will be enough to get it through Canadian customs.  Where the information on the item's country of origin/manufacture can be found is in a section in the listing titled "Item Specifics."  If the seller hasn't provided this information, the hub may put it through with "unknown" as the item's country of origin/manufacture, or they may dead-end it.  It may come down to whether or not you were charged accurately for tariffs and taxes at Checkout.

What you might want to do is search for similar Magic: The Gathering listings that are "Buy it Now" rather than auctions and look for listings that are about the same price as the maximum you're prepared to pay for the set you're considering bidding on.  With luck, these will be handled by eBay International Shipping as well and they'll show a charge for "duty".  Check the country of origin/manufacture for these listings and see if there's any rhyme or reason to the "duty" charges shown on the listing.

Hope I'm making some sense here.