Importing to Canada (Ontario) from Champlain?

[barold]

Has anyone here had experience importing a sailboat from lake Champlain to the Great Lakes (Canadian side)? There seem to be a good number of Quebec owned recent model boats for sale there that are "tax unpaid".

From my basic interpretation, duty would be payable on the current value (ie not new retail) if not built in North America, and sales tax HST (would be payable anyways if I bought a boat in Canada.

Any tips or experience to share?

[AiniA]

You pretty much have it. The duty as I understand is 9%. We brought our US-made boat into Canada on Lake Ontario. Just told the customs people when we phoned in that we were importing the boat. They came down to the boat and gave us some forms and asked us to go to the nearest customs office (Oshawa airport as it turned out) the next day where we paid the money. Quite a simple process although ours might have been simpler since we had already registered the boat in Canada a number of years earlier - no HST or duty is paid until the actual import.

[Vasco]

Originally Posted by AiniA

You pretty much have it. The duty as I understand is 9%. We brought our US-made boat into Canada on Lake Ontario. Just told the customs people when we phoned in that we were importing the boat. They came down to the boat and gave us some forms and asked us to go to the nearest customs office (Oshawa airport as it turned out) the next day where we paid the money. Quite a simple process although ours might have been simpler since we had already registered the boat in Canada a number of years earlier - no HST or duty is paid until the actual import.

How did Customs determine the value of your boat? I am assuming that the value had decreased since you bought and registered it a "number of years ago".