Date:         Tue, 19 Nov 96 21:05:31 CST
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Joel Walker <JWALKER@ua1vm.ua.edu>
Subject:      Re: Canada Customs

On Tue, 19 Nov 1996 20:28:16 -0600 Harry Yates said:
>Customs wrote me up for the following:
>Value:  $35.00 US X 1.3316 = $46.61 CDN
>Duty:                 $0.84
>GST:                  $3.32
>Handling fee:     $5.00
>Total Payable:  $9.16
>So, fellow Canucks, be aware of the tax man when ordering from
>outside of Canada.  I am a little confused as to why I have to pay
>GST for something that wasn't purchased in Canada.  Hmmm....

you don't understand the mind of governments. we USers are used to this
sort of logic:
- you ordered parts from outside the country.
- the u.s. post office delivers the goods to the canadian post office.
- the canadian post office delivers the goods to you.
- you pay the canadian post office to mail things for you.
- therefore you "purchased" the goods from the canadian post office.
- therefore you owe sales tax on that "purchase": $3.32 tax on $5.32
  "purchase".

simple, yes??  our Infernal Revenue Service does it to us ALL the time.
we pay taxes on the taxes we paid last year (but got back because we paid
too much taxes for the amount of salary we made).

no, i'm NOT being funny.

joel