i'm a patriotic canadian but..THIEVES!

[tenax]

gotcha ben..i wasn't trying to make a case for you shipping chem kits to canada, so you know the liability by the way for a mislabeled shipment, item marked as a gift when it is not, lost shipment, item marked at a clearly unreasonable value is the shippers, even if they have proof it was requested to be sent inappropriately by the receiver. the shipper has to make any inquiries and claims to usps.the receiver can try, but unless you get a real mr. friendly at usps, you will get the "usps manual" line and correctly so i think, that the shipper has to make the contact with usps. in most cases unless there is a really flagrant abuse, customs will simply seize the item and end of story. but i believe fines and imprisonment are possibilities. years ago when i started buying, selling and trading computer parts, i didn't know any better and people marked items as gifts all the time. these days, not worth it. the fees just aren't high enough from canada post to take the risk and if it's a low value item, the fees are going to be dirt cheap or nonexistent for duties (under 60 canadian value, zero duties)

[matt4x4]

I have to disagree, items under 60 from the usa shipped by a legitimate seller not as a "gift" are still subject to duties on them, recently i bought 45 dollars worth of goods, it cost me an extra 12 dollars in duties before it was released to me. I don't like buying anything from the USA because of the shipping issues, sometimes you get lucky and don't get nailed, other times it made the whole attempt at saving some money pointless AND on top of it you have to wait for the item to arrive - sometimes upwards of 3 weeks because of customs.

[RavenNS]

I agree with the above post;
I find that Duty is generally paid on items over $20... sometimes you get lucky & no duties on sums higher than that... most of the time you'll end up paying something.
USPS also charges a $5 customs brokerage fee... The couriers charge way more for that. Recently had a $65 customs brokerage fee from UPS!

What makes me crazy is having to pay HST ( $15% harmonized sales tax) on the customs brokerage fee part of the duty ( as well as the 12.5%duty)

I always attempt to get a seller to under-value the declared value if possible. I'm not saying write "gift" or anything, just put a reasonable amount for declaration.... ( & please not more then i paid for it!!!)
some sellers actually Inflate the cost because they want to insure it for a high dollar amount