**UPDATED AGAIN!** My Experience of Shipping Snus to Canada

[lowfiwhiteguy]

piss off

[lxskllr]

Welcome to SnusOn!

I'm not Canadian, so I don't know, but from what I've heard the rates seem arbitrary. Every time will be different, and it ranges from none at all, to reasonable, to ridiculous, and you never know what you'll get. Good luck in any case. I hope you don't get reamed.

[lowfiwhiteguy]

Yeah, that's how it seems. I'll check back when it does arrive and let everyone know how it goes. Might be good for a chuckle. :lol:

[Premium Parrots]

Hey Welcome to the board. Enjoy yourself...........at least as long as you can afford to pay the taxes for your snus habit. That really sucks man. Good luck.

[heapbag]

Re: Attention Atlantic Canadian Snusers... HELP!

I'm asking atlantic Canadians in provinces with HST to share with me their snus shopping stories, and their experience with the apparently biblical tobacco tax fees we get slapped with up here.

You see, Atlantic provinces have that wonderful HST rather than PST/GST separately. Because of this, it's pretty much impossible for me to even estimate how much I'm due to pay when this damn stuff gets to my door. It's a total crapshoot. Newfoundland in particular has a provincial tobacco tax on fine cut tobacco of $.30 per gram. Because of this HST situation, do I still add the Canadian Federal Tobacco tax of near-as-makes-no-difference $.13 ontop of that $.30 to give me a $.43/g tax, before duty and customs and whatever other bullshit they decide to levy me with? Or is that included in the HST? Is it the same rate when it's harmonised?

Thanks for any help!

Hi Whiteguy,
Although us Ontarians are not subject to HST yet (will take effect in this province on July 1, 2010) the way in which GST or HST is applied will be the same.

First of all, keep in mind that not all shipments of snus are assessed duty/tax. Sometimes it can "slip" through. I've ordered two shipments of snus so far, the first one was taxed..the other was not.

So, you might be freaking out over nothing (hopefully).

Even the way its assessed can be inconsistent. The one shipment of mine that was hit was charged duty, gst and a $5 "handling" fee (no excise charge was applied).

If you are assessed duties/taxes you will get the notice with the package showing the charges that were applied and the rates that were charged.

Taking a look at duty, there are potentially two different duty rates that may be assessed. One is under "Snuff" which has a rate of 5%, the other is chewing tobacco which has a rate of 9.5%. Snus is not specifically named in the Customs tariff.

Mine was thankfully charged the lower rate has "Snuff" at 5%. And that's 5% of the total of the goods (converted to Canadian dollars based on that day's exchange rate).

Seperate to this is Excise tax (which again may or may not be applied).

With Excise there is a Federal rate of $2.89 per can (under 50 grams each)

On top of this can be a seperate Provincial Excise rate which you said was $.30 per gram for the Province of Newfoundland.

So, in the end if your shipment was let's say for example $50 then you could be charged:

$50 x duty rate = A + Excise Tax = B x 13% HST = C + $5 Canada Post Handling Charge = D (Total amount owing).

To stress again, your package might go through no problem or if it is held up the excise tax might not be added.

Good luck

Here is a link to another forum from somebody (from PEI sure enough) that originally looked into this, but I checked into it myself and agree with his research:

http://www.smpost.net/modules/newbb/...m=27&move=prev

[lowfiwhiteguy]

^^ Wow, thanks so much for that information. It really does seem to be up to chance what I end up paying, if anything, at all. I'll just have to find out when it gets here. I'll let you guys know!

[sagedil]

Welcome to Snuson lowfiwhiteguy

Yes, it seems to be completely and utterly random according to the many Canadians who have posted about such over the past few years. Good luck. But take comfort, at least you can still buy Lucky Strike! :wink:

[lowfiwhiteguy]

Welcome to Snuson lowfiwhiteguy

Yes, it seems to be completely and utterly random according to the many Canadians who have posted about such over the past few years. Good luck. But take comfort, at least you can still buy Lucky Strike! :wink:

Out of curiousity, what prevents you from buying Lucky Strike? I have some in my order by the way! :P

[heapbag]

Welcome to Snuson lowfiwhiteguy

Yes, it seems to be completely and utterly random according to the many Canadians who have posted about such over the past few years. Good luck. But take comfort, at least you can still buy Lucky Strike! :wink:

Out of curiousity, what prevents you from buying Lucky Strike? I have some in my order by the way! :P

Due to trademark issues as per Sage's post (3rd one down):

http://www.snuson.com/viewtopic.php?...2d5532cdd84949

Out of interest Lowfi I wanted to hear how you made out. Did you get your shipment? Did it arrive safe & sound (and most importantly duty free)?

[lowfiwhiteguy]

Welcome to Snuson lowfiwhiteguy

Yes, it seems to be completely and utterly random according to the many Canadians who have posted about such over the past few years. Good luck. But take comfort, at least you can still buy Lucky Strike! :wink:

Out of curiousity, what prevents you from buying Lucky Strike? I have some in my order by the way! :P

Due to trademark issues as per Sage's post (3rd one down):

http://www.snuson.com/viewtopic.php?...2d5532cdd84949

Out of interest Lowfi I wanted to hear how you made out. Did you get your shipment? Did it arrive safe & sound (and most importantly duty free)?

Yes, check the updated message in the original post up top!

[heapbag]

Re: **UPDATED!** Attention Atlantic Canadian Snusers... HELP

[quote="lowfiwhiteguy"]**UPDATE** I've just received the first package of my two shipments of snus from Northerner.com. It contained 4 snus:

Göteborgs Rapé No.2
Röda Lacket
Thunder Frosted
Thunder Berry

I didn't have to pay a cent!! I'm so relieved. It may be because "snus" was written so illegibly on the package, perhaps. Anyway I'll let you guys know if I get the remaining two packets free of duty and customs and/or if I need to pay anything, how much.

P.S. Göteborgs is absolutely great, I love the lingonberry flavour. Heh. :P

Nicely done! And for some reason the snus tastes that much better when you avoid paying tax & duties on it.

[lxskllr]

I'm glad it got through alright. I hope the good fortune continues :^)

[dix0r]

i went down to the US today and picked up my snus...

ended up shipping about half of it to family in the US - as taxes were about $150 on the 11 cans i did keep.

i'm justifying it by saying that it's the same price as copenhagen is here, for slightly more tobacco - and less tsnas. when i find 'my' snus - then i'll have it sent up here

/threadjack

[lxskllr]

i went down to the US today and picked up my snus...

ended up shipping about half of it to family in the US - as taxes were about $150 on the 11 cans i did keep.

i'm justifying it by saying that it's the same price as copenhagen is here, for slightly more tobacco - and less tsnas. when i find 'my' snus - then i'll have it sent up here

/threadjack

Damn man. That's almost $18 a tin with shipping. Have you ever considered an armed uprising?

[Owens187]

i went down to the US today and picked up my snus...

ended up shipping about half of it to family in the US - as taxes were about $150 on the 11 cans i did keep.

i'm justifying it by saying that it's the same price as copenhagen is here, for slightly more tobacco - and less tsnas. when i find 'my' snus - then i'll have it sent up here

/threadjack

Damn man. That's almost $18 a tin with shipping. Have you ever considered an armed uprising?

No sh*T! Im with you. Revolt! $150 on 11 cans of snus? You gotta be kidding me. What the hell is your country's problem? And I thought we had it bad.....