The CBC is reporting that the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement will actually benefit Canadian shoppers that enjoy cross-border shopping or ordering from American online sites. One of the interesting aspects of the new agreement will increase the de minimis threshold for duty-free shopping. The de minimis threshold is the value below which goods can be shipped into the country before duties and taxes are assessed changed.
Before the agreement, Canada’s limit was $20 it has now been raised to $150. This means that Canadians can buy up to $150 of goods from an American store before they have to pay a tax on what they come back with or before they are hit with a duty from an online order.
Industry insiders point out that in a sense this is bad news for Canadian retailers as the direct result of this new policy will allow Canadians to buy more from U.S. retailers over the internet without being dinged with duties.
With the new rules if you buy something from the U.S. that costs under $50 you’ll be spared the duty that would have cost them a percentage to bring those goods into the country. It gets confusing because each province has a separate tax rate. As we are not tax specialists we won’t even attempt to break down what that means for Canadians. Essentially what you need to know as a Canadian shopper is that if you purchase goods from American websites your tax levies are about to get lower. For more information, you can read the CBC’s full article.