Double confirmation and a rant

The Bismarck just arrived from Tony Miller... I am posting this to confirm that:
1) The razor arrived QUICKLY and in a great shape. Thank you Tony, top class as always!
2) My honing to date has been good. Tony honed this razor and when it comes to the sharpness, my own honing work is on the par with it. Even though I got to see X's honing work as well, it's always good to compare with others, especially if they have Tony's reputation.

Now my rant is with Canada Customs.

First they opened the the box and probably had their dirty paws all over my new baby. I'll have to take it to Ivana's salon and have it sprayed with Barbiside before I shave with it. Then they charged me a $5 handling fee ON TOP OF MY TAXES!!! First they don't trust the declaration and then they penalize me for their lack of trust even though everything is as declared? They wasted the time that Tony spent disinfecting it after the honing and the time that I will have to spend disinfecting it and then they have the galls to CHARGE ME A FEE for it?! I'm FURIOUS!!! :rant:

Edit: I have no issues with paying my duties, but opening my package should be an operating expense for them. Charging for it is a slap in the face!

I agree and would make it known to the property authorities and if they didn't give the response I want take it as far as it needs to go. Heck, you paid $5 for the privilege!!!!

You paid not for the opening of the package but for Canada post to front you the money for unpaid sales taxes.

You could've gone to a customs office (before it crossed the border), filled out a declaration form and paid the gst/pst yourself, then Canada Post would not have acted as a broker on your behalf and not charged you 5$ fee.
UPS, btw, would charge you around 20$, I believe.

Redwoood

Yeah, customs really screwed me when I ordered my TI from Classic Shaving. It cost me an arm and a leg already, but they tacked on a lot extra for insurance, shipping, duties and taxes. It really made picking it up at the post office a crummier experience.

This is still an extremely inefficient way to conduct cross-border commerce. As a government-owned agency, Canada Post should be receiving tax revenue money to cover their tax-collection EXPENSES. Customs brokers seem to be even worse than loan sharks. Their handling fee is close to 50% of the duties that they "fronted."

In any case, I'll focus on the good stuff. Now I have a rotation of 4 good blades :D
2 Sheffields (Taylor's Eye Witness 6/8 full holow, G. Butler 6/8 full hollow smiler) and 2 Solingens (the Bismarck and the Satinedge with DOVO SS scales).

Walker's almost ready, W&B's waiting for scales from Nenad, I'm undecided on whether I should fix or sell the Boker, and I'll hone and give away the M&Y.

I remember when I said that I'll only get 2 razors, 3 TOPS and Nenad started laughing... Now I'm working toward a rotation of 7 with 2 spares lol. :eek:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FiReSTaRT

I remember when I said that I'll only get 2 razors, 3 TOPS and Nenad started laughing... Now I'm working toward a rotation of 7 with 2 spares lol. :eek:

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We all laughed because we all thought the same thing "I don't need anymore than the one or two I have". Boy were we wrong.:D :D

A while back I was nailed on a whole bunch of stuff by duties. Lately, however, I've had some good luck. Even the starter kit I got from Tony came through without a hitch. All the razors I got off of ebay have been fine too; even coming from the UK.

Regardless, I still have gripes with all the taxes, duties and delays that canada customs causes.
NAFTA... doing nothing since 1994 :)

Hmm, seems like this thread got unlocked again.

As much as I dislike defending bureaucracy, I feel like I have to correct this common misconception:
You rarely pay any duties on your across-border purchases. What you pay is sales taxes and brokerage fees. The first, you would have to pay in any case if you bought the item at a Canadian retailer. The second is just a fee that you pay so you don't have to fill out customs forms and get your stuff through customs yourself. The 5$ that Canada Post or CBSA charge is not that much money if you think about it. But it does hurt on small purchases.

Every time you buy something substantial ( > 20$ or so), and it passes through customs without paying taxes, you technically commit tax fraud. Although nobody would ever prosecute that. Every time you get hit with the tax, it's just a normal thing ;)

Now, there is one difference, when you buy stuff from a private Canadian seller over ebay, you usually don't pay sales tax. But even that is somewhat questionable. I don't know the exact legal situation, but e.g. I know that when you buy a car from a private seller, you have to pay at least one of the taxes.

When you cross the border, they can't let that pass. The reason being that the seller could claim that as an export and get a refund for the sales tax he/she paid. That's why you need to pick up the tab once the item is in Canada.

NAFTA does not apply. In fact, I believe that technically, if you buy stuff in another state, you are obligated to declare that item and pay your local sales tax. The problem is that nobody cares and nobody can enforce it, which is one reason why internet retail is so popular.

Redwoood

Blade Weilder,

You have got to get a new avatar..........that thing is freaking me out !!

Tony

BTW, have you seen the BK commercial where the "Burger King" and Darth Vader are standing in front of the elevator? They just stand there in this silent stare and all you hear is the breathing sound into the hollow shell of a mask from both parties.

Yikes, hopefully all they did is handle the razor and not take it for a test drive!

Products under $20 are tax and duty free. I know because I imported a number of Badger Bristle samples from China a while back. They were declared at $20us and identified as samples. I was told by a brokerage firm that contacted me regarding the taxes due, that the limit was $20can and anything over that was subject to taxes and (if applicable) duties.

Duty is rarely charged. It is a government imposed surcharge, set up to defend internal markets. For some reason, books seem to be hit with duty charges more than anything else I buy.

Still, it is a pain in the ass when customs checks my $25 package, charges me $3 in tax and $5 for the service. Regardless of value, the charge is always $5.

I got hit with taxes when Colleen sent me a large box of soap samples to send out with my brushes. Despite being labelled as product samples to be given away, with no commerical value, I still had to pay about $30 to get them out of the clink.