Posted By:
Max WederOn this thread, I wish to attest for the general overall niceness of Canadians. (However, due to our good education system, when we produce white collar criminals, we generally produce some good ones.)
The difficulties Canadians face in getting cards graded is that when the card is returned from PSA, it will have to clear customs (the Canada Border Service Agency, or as tax lawyers here call it: the Canada BS Agency). If the collector has not cleared it with customs on exporting it out of Canada, he will have to pay a federal value added tax of 7% (GST) on the fair market value of the card, plus a provincial tax (PST) in most provinces. If he does report the card to the CBSA, he still will have to pay GST and PST on the increase in fair market value of the graded card (versus the card ungraded). [The thought of customs officials appraising the fmv of baseball cards is somewhat amusing to me]
It doesn't matter whether the card is mailed or the Canadian physically imports it at the border, the tax is the same.
On the other hand, it is very frustrating for Canadians when many US ebay vendors won't ship outside the US. It sounds like a NAFTA violation, but the act is too thick for me to read.