Originally Posted by
canadiancow
Does anyone have experience with the following? I'm not even sure what to Google (I've tried a few things, but nothing quite matches what I'm doing).
I'm going on a recruiting trip to Waterloo on Sunday.
As part of htis, I am bringing some items to give out to students as prizes, such as:
Backpacks
Google Home Minis
Paper notebooks
etc.
The total retail value of everything is well under $500.
Do I need to do anything special beyond just declaring it at the border? Am I going to need an itemized list for them to assess any taxes/duties?
Basically I just want to make this is easy as possible. I'm not concerned about having to pay any money (as it can obviously be expensed), but I am concerned about doing anything illegal
Well you’re clearly under the limit (depending upon how recently you’ve been flicking over the border recently), but I’d just list $500 and head to an officer asking them if you need to pay taxes or whatever. And don’t book a short connection
While I’ve only bought in personal items before, when I was close to limit I did a quick spreadsheet listing each item/collection of which price in foreign currency and the converted value to CDN based on xe.com rate.
The officer took a look at my declared amount and said ah, what are these items. I’m convinced I would have gone to secondary had I not pulled out the list. He took one look and said have a nice day.