A note about taxes and shipping and custom duties

[Juliet Taylor]

Hi! I live in Italy so of course whoever is my Secret Santa target it's very far away and I ship internationally.

When you ship internationally of course you have to declare the value of your package and the person who will receive it will have to pay some custom duties in order to receive the package (I personally think it's not fair and the cost is too high but I cannot change it so...).

Please remember to be reasonable! Keep it low as it's possible (of course a big package weighting 20 pounds will have some value declared and not 1 dollar!) because sometimes people do not realize how they're exaggerating.

I'll make an example: I had quilters sending blocks my way for a collective gift to another quilter. In 30 people who participated, only 1 sent me her block declaring (from the US) a value of 25 dollars. In the same package there was a thimble and she declared other 25 dollars of value! (not a vintage thimble, just to be clear). So for a declared value of 50 dollars that was INSANE because 5 dollars was already too much I paid 16 dollars just to get the package. I paid and got it because it was the only one missing but I told the lady and she had no clue that this would happen.

So maybe you're not aware of this but I just thought it was important to share!

Since I wanted to try this Secret Santa thing I decided to put some money away both for shipping it and the custom duties I'll have to pay to receive mine but please... if you're having a target outside your country remember this

Hope you have a nice day of sewing!

[Monique]

And mark it as a gift.

[Astatoo]

Wow, that is outrageous. It is good to know, I will be sure to keep this in mind when shipping overseas.

[Mary Lynn]

I was wondering if anyone knew what was the most reasonable priced method to ship fro Canada to USA?

[Carlie Wolf]

I recall being told to always mark things as a "gift" too Monique when I w up in Canada. I never had to pay duty on things when I was up there. But yes the postage was always still very expensive even when I didn't have to pay duty.

[Wyora]

Marking the customs label as "bona fide gift", and handmade, will help with declaring a low value. The more purchased items you include, the harder it is to justify a low value. Don't think you're insulting or slighting your exchange partner if you value you something at $2 or $3, the international recipients will appreciate you taking into consideration the customs issue.

[redcaboose1717]

WOW....all of these things are good to know. I didn't realize that it would cost that much. I have a couple of Canadian friends and they have never mentioned this.( Of course I don't send a lot of things to them, but will keep this in mind.
I do have a Canadian friend that has a close friend that lives in New York and years ago, she asked me to send any packages that I might send to her to her friend's New York address. Now I understand why !