Taxes charged on an exempt item

[sergus0]

I recently purchased 3 coins (coins originating from the Royal Canadian Mint that were tax exempt) from 3 different sellers, all residing in Alberta.  I did a lot of searching before I bought and most ads stated that these coins were tax exempt.  The last coin I purchased, the seller charged me taxes (the other 2 sellers did not).  Is this just a 'too bad, it sucks to be me' for not being more careful, or the seller's ads are all set up to charge tax on all his items?  I am not going to make a big thing out of this, I already paid and want the coin, but if there was a chance of getting the tax refunded, that would be nice.  I did send the seller a friendly question about it.

Everyone - please stay safe and away from others during covid-19, which is going to last for months.  Good luck to all.

[ypdc_dennis · Accepted solution]

coins refined to a minimum purity of 99.50% for gold and 99.9% for silver are exempt from GST/HST.

...

Some sellers do not charge GST/HST because they are not required to be registered (selling less than $30000/year) and some sellers eat the tax cost for Canadian sales.

You also see this happening with stamp sales.

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[esclyons]

only pure gold, and pure silver, are tax exempt. if you can say what coin you bought i can tell you if you should have paid tax.

[femmefan1946]

That's useful to know. I've seen quite a few complaints about this over the years and with your informed post, I think that most of those were actually buying gold or silver alloys, or even plated base metal coins/medallions in the belief they were getting something better. In other news, the price of gold was down just like the stock market.

[sergus0]

Thanks so much for the information people!!!  I did not know pure gold and silver were tax exempt.  Yes, my coins are pure silver 99.9% and the seller refunded me the tax which is great.  Now I just hope the items get through the postal system before Canada goes to a stand-still.   I guess I shouldn't have bought them at this time because of that.

Thanks again  : )