Originally Posted by
Steve M
A $0 value on a Customs declaration is always a no-no.
Nonsense. I go to Canada several times a year (I have a number of clients there). These trips are always short, frequently just overnight, and I hardly ever buy anything. Accordingly, my Customs declaration usually recites $0, and I've never, not once, had the least bit of trouble with Customs. I've never gotten a secondary. I've never been asked questions
by Customs about what I did.
This is especially true if you mail something somewhere. I'm aware of several situations where someone mailed something for business to another country via FedEx or some other express service that needed to get there quickly, and where the item in question was demo software, a DVD of a presentation, or something similar, and where the physical item itself was considered to have essentially no value. If you put $0 as the value on the Customs declaration, you're begging for the item to be held up in Customs, as the officer is likely to ask "why is someone paying to overnight an item half-way around the world that has no value?"
I don't know where you are getting this, as it's simply not true. I have clients all over the world, as well as associate firms and other offices in many different countries. I routinely ship documents, data CDs and data DVDs to these locations, and receive similar items back. I use Fedex, UPS and DHL. I've never had anything held up by Customs.