So I've figured out camera duty and taxes, I was wondering if anyone could decipher canadian duty laws and their vagueness or has experience shipping light stands, umbrellas, and flashes. I'm thinking about putting together a cheap portable setup for starting out.
Not quite sure what exactly you're looking for, but when you order stuff from outside Canada and import them you'll have to pay GST. UPS, FEDEX will charge an additional brokerage fee. Some sellers esp, ebayers might just put "gift" on the custom form and you pay no duty... if you're lucky, if you're not; customs will hold the package and try to determine the value and charge you accordingly
I've never had to pay duty on photo gear from the US, including a background stand system, softboxes, umberllas, stands, clamps & etc. I bought my monolights in Canada, but I would be very surprised to pay duty to import strobes from the US. My experience is the same as Milamug for courier tax & fees, although you often bypass these expenses when you ship by USPS.
hmmm, very lucky over there. I've had a mixed bag, I've imported two lenses, one was charged GST, the other wasn't. But my friend brought up a d60 a few years back and got scorched on huge duty beyond the taxes.
I bought a couple Alienbee 400's, the digibee package and payed for UPS Worlwide saver, it was more expensive but I didn't have to pay anything extra. If I chose ground it might have been different.
Avoid UPS if possible USPS seems to be the most fair.
