Importing into Canada — GST & duty: how much of this can I do myself?
Some of it, yes — and we will say so on the call if that is the honest answer. The parts that are worth paying for are the ones where a missed election, a missed deadline or an unverified threshold costs more than the fee: duty and import tax are assessed at the border on the customs value, while the onward sale is taxed under the domestic rules.
What if I have already filed and got it wrong?
That is a common starting point. We re-derive the position, identify whether an amendment or a disclosure route is the right vehicle, and tell you which one preserves the relief that is still available. The order matters more than the speed.
How long will it take?
It depends on the documents rather than on us. Once the pack is complete most filings turn around inside a fortnight; anything that needs a certificate from a tax authority runs on that authority's timetable, which we tell you at the start rather than at the end.
Who actually pays the GST on goods imported into Canada?
It is paid at the border by whoever is shown as importer of record, and that is the name on the customs entry rather than whoever owns the goods or pays the invoice. The two are often different, which is where the trouble starts. If a broker, a customer or a logistics provider is named, they have paid the tax and the recovery question attaches to them, not to you. Before a shipment moves, decide who is going to be the importer of record and make sure the paperwork says so, because correcting it afterwards is slow.
Can I claim back the tax I paid at the border?
Only if you are the person who paid it and you are registered in a way that gives you recovery. Both halves have to be true. A non-resident who is named as importer of record but is not registered appropriately carries the import tax as a cost, and it quietly sits in the margin on every shipment. A non-resident who is registered appropriately but is not the importer of record has nothing to recover, because somebody else paid it. Line up the registration and the customs paperwork with each other before goods start crossing.
What does importer of record actually mean?
It is the party that accounts to the border agency for the shipment: the declared value, the classification, the duty and the import tax, and the accuracy of all of it. It carries the liability if any of that is later found to be wrong, including on entries filed years earlier. People treat the field as an administrative detail to be filled in by whoever is arranging the shipping, which is why it so often names a party with no interest in the goods. It decides who pays and who can recover, so it is a commercial decision.
My customs broker is named as the importer, is that a problem?
It is worth looking at closely. A broker or forwarder named as importer of record has assumed the accounting position for the shipment, which means the import tax has been paid by them and any recovery sits on their side rather than yours. Some arrangements pass the cost back to you with no route to recover it at all. It also means the party answering for the declared value and the classification is not the party that knows the goods. Read what the arrangement actually says before assuming it is the convenient default it appears to be.
Is duty charged on the same value as the import tax?
They are separate charges arising on the same shipment, and they are not the same calculation. Duty depends on how the goods are classified and where they originate, so two similar products can attract different rates. The import tax is applied on a base built from the customs value, which is why an error in the declared value flows into both charges at once. Treating them as one line on a broker's invoice is how businesses end up unable to say what they paid, to whom, or whether any part of it could have been recovered.
Do I charge Canadian sales tax when I resell the imported goods?
The import charge and the onward sale are governed by different rules, so the answer does not follow from having paid tax at the border. The sale is taxed under the domestic rules, with the province and therefore the rate depending on where the supply takes place rather than where the goods entered. A business that has paid at the border and assumes that settles the matter is frequently under-charging on the resale. Map the domestic side at the same time as the import side, because the same shipment gives rise to both.
Is "fund transfer pricing" the same thing as transfer pricing?
No — and if you came here to calculate FTP, this is not it. Fund transfer pricing is a bank's internal allocation of funding costs and benefits between its own business units, a treasury and asset-liability management discipline used to measure branch or product profitability. Tax transfer pricing is about prices between legally separate related parties across borders, and about which country taxes the resulting profit. The words overlap; the fields do not. See our transfer pricing work.
Can an accountant in one country file my return in another?
Yes, where they are authorised to represent you with that tax authority and the filing is done electronically. What matters is not where the adviser sits but whether they can lawfully act for you and are competent in both systems — a return prepared with no knowledge of the other country is where the relief gets missed. We file on both sides, from offices in India, the USA, Canada and the UAE. See how we work.