I'm faced with a nice problem to have, while in the US a company I work with gifted one of their products to me, a laptop that they don't sell yet, but will soon. How would something like this work with customs, I'm in the US for 4 days, then through customs in YYC and want to be up front about it. Value is just a best guess since it is not for sale, but I would guess its worth about $700USD.

Just be honest. Declare it at $700 on the form, and when you go to the cashier just tell them exactly what you wrote here. You are very unlikely to have a problem when you are be open and volunteering to pay duty/tax.

Honesty is always the best policy but if you're worried about it you could assume a cost of $500 which may be reasonable as well. It would still be over the $400 you would be allowed to bring after this trip but given the strength in the CAD it would be only about $75 over the limit. Also, you could just put the computer and charger in your bag and not say anything, it is not uncommon for people to bring laptops back and forth, just make sure you have done the original set-up before you get to the airport.
If it was me, I would declare it and I find that they are usually pretty nice to you if you declare. I often come back with a bottle of booze after being gone a night and declare the 20-30 dollars I spent and they often kick me without paying anything so I think they appreciate the honesty. Also, if you travel a lot, you don't want to get in their bad books, particularly if you use Nexxus or Canpass.

Laptops depreciate pretty quickly, but check out recent completed bids on ebay. I think that would be a fare assessment of current value.

As Z-man said, they usually won't make you pay anything if you're only $100 or so over your limit. It's just not worth their time. In fact, I have Nexus and if I'm over limit, I'll always use the line over the kiosk since with the latter I have to go see the cashier even if I'm $1 over the limit, but with an agent it's at his discretion.

As others have said, honesty is the best policy. Once you're flagged, it's really hard to get off the list. I'd sooner lie to my wife than customs!

You better hope she doesn't lurk here and doesn't know your handle...

I would recommend having some sort of paperwork to justify your guess at the value.

Since the product is not yet for sale, I would suggest finding another laptop with similar specs and print out a price quote from somewhere.

Customs might not ask for it, but it never hurts to be prepared.

I agree - honesty is the best policy.

I came through Customs on Sunday. I'd stayed 6 1/2 days and imported about $900 worth of stuff. The Customs agent said "close enough" and let me through.

I always make a list of what I've purchased by category, and then I make a summary of the categories. The agents seem to like when I hand them this list.

Being brutally honest pays! And truthfully, if you have to pay a little tax... you have to pay. No biggie!

Liberal I take it???? Starts off as a little here and there and next thing you know you're paying 80% income tax...

...or try living in Quebec at 52.5% tax!...LOL!

Honesty is certainly the best policy, but it doesn't always provide the best results. A few years ago my wife and I spent 4 days in the US. Like you, I'm somewhat anal about keeping track of all my purchases abroad and I had a detailed list and receipts for everything. Coincidentally, our purchases equaled our allowable combined exemptions (and no single item exceeded either personal exemption). I filled out the declaration card and showed the maximum allowable claim for each of us. My wife was not comfortable doing this as she (correctly) figured being honest in this case would just create problems. She actually suggested we fudge one way or the other a little bit, but I stuck to my guns.

Upon going through customs we were directed to secondary and the agent asked to go through our luggage. I became a little irate (no yelling or screaming, just firm forceful discussion) about being harassed for being honest. I then pulled my list and receipts out of my pocket and told the agent he was welcome to check my math. He glanced at the paper and then told us were good to go.

Since then we've both acquired Nexus cards and find the process much more civilized and not subject to the whims of a cranky agent.

Treat them like highway robbers. If you were asked to surrender all your stuff at gunpoint, would you do it? If you don't, you could risk being killed.

It's not as severe, but it's analogous.

Highway robbery is wrong and illegal. Charging a tax or duty is wrong but legal.

Too bad the society has made these wrong things right. And have educated the mass to believe that it's one's duty to be robbed when taking one's belonging from one place to another.

Similar to money printing/counterfeiting. It's illegal if done by any individual but it's legal and necessary if it's done by the US Federal Reserve.

Nice. Bring politics into it. Exaggerative politics.

My point is merely that the tax rates are what they are. We already pay PST/GST/HST and products we buy in Canada that are dutiable already have duty in them. If I import enough stuff that I have to pay some tax, am I happy? No, but I pay anyway.

I import a lot of stuff in my travels. I doubt I have spent $100 in taxes and duty yet. Compared to the cost of the travel, the taxes and duty have been absolutely insignificant. I spend more money to call home.

I think duties are proctectionist rubbish. Duties on a laptop? Ridiculous. It's not like there's a Canadian laptop manufacturing industry we're protecting.

Sales taxes however, are a different matter. If you go over the line to buy a laptop to my mind it's not unreasonable that you should have to pay sales taxes when you cross back into Canada.

If you don't want to pay taxes stay over the line for two sleeps or buy it on Craigslist.

Are there even duties on laptops?

Gradually we're negotiating free trade agreements with more and more governments (we have some with a few South American countries now, and are negotiating one with the EU at the moment; I think Korea is in the cards too). Personally I'm in favour of removing barriers to trade.

To me, though, this thread should be about what is and not what ought to be (descriptive rather than normative if you want to go back to your political science lingo). The way to avoid paying duties and taxes is to avoid purchases that are subject to them. Personally, if I'm on vacation and I see something I want and can afford, I buy it. The duties and taxes fall where they fall and if I have to pay them, I pay them. Typically, though, since I tend to be in the ballpark of my exemption and I'm super honest with the Customs people, they seldom make me pay. I don't think that it's a coincidence - I go in with a decent attitude and I think they appreciate it, and I generally get one back from them and appreciate it, too.

Of course there is no duty on laptops (and most consumer electronics). Used to have 10% excise tax on clocks(of all type) but that's been eliminated.