Quote:
Originally Posted by RevSmoke
What is the rate of taxation if cigars come to your from down south? If a person (say, myself) sends you a package, how difficult is it to get to you - are you taxed for it?
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If the package contents were properly declared and tax & duty was charged, my guess would be expensive but I've never had to deal with that issue so I can't give you a particularly detailed answer to that question. I do know from comparing local B&M prices on Cuban's to those from retailers that exist in the tax exempt world of native reservations, that my provincial and federal taxes add about $10 - $12 per stick on average cigars (P D4, RyJ Short Churchill, Sancho Panza Beli's, etc) and quite significantly more on specialty, LE or rare releases. There are a couple boxes of the Cohiba Gran Reserva my local B&M right now for $2310/box as an example. Most discussions here have pegged the standard price at around $1500 USD/box for that release.
I know that, like alcohol, shipping tobacco products between provinces is illegal so I assume it would the same with international shipments. That said, I have ordered from a couple "Canadian friendly" online shops from the US in the past and never had a problem. The packages have also never been opened and inspected (to my knowledge) so I don't know if they'd send it back to sender or not. However I doubt that customs would really bother trying to assess and charge taxes on a small package with a quantity that's obviously a personal gift unless you got an agent that was having a really bad caseof the Monday's. Now if you were receiving a larger package that looked more like a commercial purchase or an obvious attempt to avoid local taxes it would probably be different.
(note that I am talking in CDN dollars for most prices, but the CAD and USD have been basically on par for the last couple years anyways)