Quick question, if you are mailing a Flute to Canada what is the best way to do this in terms of minimizing any duty or taxes?
Thanks!
Ben Shaffer
USPS - no doubt about it…
From the couple times I’ve done this, it helps to put the words, “Used Goods: Flute,” in large, friendly letters on the outside of the package. Like Pat said, USPS will be your lowest cost option.
The receiver may not be able to avoid paying duty and taxes unless he’s very lucky with customs. Don’t use a courier, however, or they’ll get hit with brokerage fees as well. I agree with USPS.
The chorus has it correctly. The mail is the way to go, but it might help to understand why. Here, Canada Post (which of course handles delivery of mail from the US) manages to cover customs brokerage from overhead, but all the courier companies will levy a surprise! fee on the recipient, unless you have directed them to your own broker. The fee can be more than the cartage; I got murdered on a shipment from Lark in the Morning, for instance, in which the shipping from California to Ontario was $35, but the driver demanded $50 plus taxes at the door, which came on top of the government’s wedge for sales tax. I was not happy, and have never used UPS for anything since. There’s a further benefit in that stuff in the mail is as likely to be misssed by tax collectors, but stuff sent by courier almost never is.
Finally, marking the package ‘used goods - flute’ will get it through duty free, but there’s still a combined federal-provincial VAT-like tax of about 15%. Customs will charge that on the declared or insured value plus all postage and handling charges they can find, unless the package is clearly marked as not a sale, ie “returned repair” or something similar. There’s an appeal process if they get it wrong, but this is made intentionally cumbersome in the (correct) expectation that most will merely grumble and not file.
There is no duty on musical instruments shipped to Canada.
Customs will assign taxes, and aren’t likely to believe too impossibly low a figure. My last flute was shipped to me as a “repair” worth $50. Customs could see through that ruse, and reassigned a value of $375 to my new ($1800) flute!
You might as well use Canada Post as any of the big name couriers. They are cheaper, and just as fast. I guess it depends on country of origin, though, and what the services out from there are. European courier service can be very expensive.
Geoffrey
I also agree that the postal system is the best. If the shipper will mark it “used wooden flute returned for repair” this usually works. Even when the shipper declares full value, at least some of the time it gets delivered with no extra charges. I suspect that bored employees with a quota to meet see a small package, read wooden flute, and think “junk, I have to look up duty for used instruments, who cares…” and push it out the door.
Contra Simon, I sent a flute to Terry McGee for repair and restoration. The postman arrived at the door with an outrageous bill for $1700. I couldn’t accept the flute, and dispute the bill later, so I had to refuse the flute, make my claim for readjustment, and they’d send it out again. So I sobbed quietly while my flute disappeared. He left me a number to call, and the tracking number. I called the number, explained that I was the owner and had sent the flute for repair, that the flute was antique and thus duty free, that musical instruments were duty free, but that I’d be happy to pay taxes on the value of the repair. The person said she’d look after it and the flute was back at my door the next day with a bill for $105, so I was happy.
Hugh