Fed Issue #45 - Feds spend $166 million to collect $39 million in additional taxes and duties.

Online duties and taxes .... Canadian's trapped! Both parties here to blame.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/onli...axes-1.3647965
If the purchase is a penny over $20 Cdn, a federal customs agent can intercept it, open it, delay it, add federal and provincial sales taxes, and, depending on the origin of the merchandise, perhaps pile on some duty charges — basically protectionist taxes.

How else to explain the conclusion of a new study, carried out by three economists in Washington, that found by keeping that purchase threshold at $20 instead of giving Canadian shoppers a break and raising it to $80, Ottawa spends about $166 million to collect $39 million in additional taxes and duties.

Think about that: Ottawa's customs officials spend a net $127 million of taxpayers' money annually, basically to keep Canadians trapped inside the Canadian retail corral.


The Canadian de minimis is the stingiest in the developed world. It's so much lower than the equivalent American threshold as to be simply depressing — to consumers, at least.

In the world of consumer delights and free delivery and low taxes that is the United States, government customs agents don't bother with any cross-border shipment worth less than $800 US.