Hi Gents,
For Canadian importing goods from the USA, they need to comply with the "new NAFTA" agreement. (And visa versa) Relatively quietly on July 1, 2020, the new Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) entered into force. NAFTA eliminated virtually all tariffs between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, with very few exceptions. CUSMA maintains these benefits and ensures that the vast majority of North American trade will continue to be duty-free. (There are some areas were political interference has some goods subject to tariff but these are the rare exceptions. Sometimes folks call "national security" just to mess things up for a while.)
As I sometimes buy goods (say like my HSU CCB-8s) from the USA that aren't readily available here in Canada, I need to keep up to date on the cost of doing so. The provincial and federal harmonized sales tax of 13% Eppie refers to actually varies a bit (due again to political whims) in different provinces and territories of Canada, but typically applies to almost all goods purchased in Canada, or imported into Canada. (No escape from the Tax Man!) The Federal Government has recently announced it's going to Tax "Internet Services" like Netflix after ignoring it for ages. Like all governments it seems, Canada too is always on the hunt to suck as much revenue from it's population so it it can waste it in various ways. (OK soapbox over...)
There is a clause in CUSMA that is supposed to eliminate any duty or import processing fees for "low value" goods shipping direct to households (think like from Amazon, or via FedEX, UPS, etc.) This was suppose to about $800 per shipment as I remember, but when Covid hit, it seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle. My last purchase was still nicked for processing (not called duty!) as the shipper continued to apply NAFTA rules and their old process => not the CUSMA process. This was suppose to increase Web based commerce amongst the 3 CUSMA nations. But as this seems painfully slow to get implemented, the benefits aren't really there.
