Andronicus
Recruit
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2008
- Messages
- 5
I just bought a new Kawasaki JetSki STX-15F in Montana, and imported it to Alberta. All said and done I saved $3952.70 on just the boat, plus, I saved on assesories. The dealer down there also gave me a full tank of gas (16 gallons or about 62L), and a fire extinguisher at no charge (dealers in the US try to take care of you unlike here in Canada where they try to nickel and dime you for everything).
A quick note. I bought my trailer in Canada. That will save you a lot of hassle. In the end, I don't think that you are likely to save much money by buying one down there anyway after paying the $200 inspection fee etc. I got a better trailer, used but lookes new, up here in Canada for about the same as it would be all said on done for a new one down there.
One more note. Montana has no State Sales Tax. Most stats that do, you can avoid it by brining in the appropriate form from the state's government showing that you are indeed a resident of Canada. (example for Washington State)
So here is the process required. The dealer needs you to supply an American address for warranty registration. I used my friends Dad's winter home in Florida. You need the dealer to give you a certificate of origin (the one I got was notorised, I hear someone say that this was important), a recall statment (showing that there are no outstanding recalls), and of course the bill of sale.
When you cross the boarder back into Canada, technically they should ask to see all 3 of those documents, but when I crossed they only wanted to see the bill of sale. They will charge you GST on the purchase price, and if applicable PST. Right now they are using an exchange rate of 1.00 for calculating GST, so it worked in my favour (the exchange rate was actually 1.045). Then I went to a Service Canada center with my bill of sale, the customs GST form, and a completed "Application for Pleasure Craft Licence". They gave me a licence number on the spot. Now all I have to do is put the licence number stickers on the hull.
Done like dinner. Super easy. It was only 10h of driving total, and I save $4000 on the boat alone. While down there we bought about $1400 of other stuff, saving probably $1000 on that, and only ended up paying the GST at the border. I think that at 1:00AM the customs agents did not want to have the hassle of calculating the duty on 100s of items. We had bought probably 100 items from Bath and Body Works plus quite a bit of other stuff. It would have taken probably an hour to figure out the duty, and most of it was made in the US anyway.
Moral of this story? Don't let Canadian dealers (or is it the manufacturers? not sure) rip you off!! 80% of Canadians live closer to the boarder than me, so it should be less driving. Keep you money in your pocket!!
A quick note. I bought my trailer in Canada. That will save you a lot of hassle. In the end, I don't think that you are likely to save much money by buying one down there anyway after paying the $200 inspection fee etc. I got a better trailer, used but lookes new, up here in Canada for about the same as it would be all said on done for a new one down there.
One more note. Montana has no State Sales Tax. Most stats that do, you can avoid it by brining in the appropriate form from the state's government showing that you are indeed a resident of Canada. (example for Washington State)
So here is the process required. The dealer needs you to supply an American address for warranty registration. I used my friends Dad's winter home in Florida. You need the dealer to give you a certificate of origin (the one I got was notorised, I hear someone say that this was important), a recall statment (showing that there are no outstanding recalls), and of course the bill of sale.
When you cross the boarder back into Canada, technically they should ask to see all 3 of those documents, but when I crossed they only wanted to see the bill of sale. They will charge you GST on the purchase price, and if applicable PST. Right now they are using an exchange rate of 1.00 for calculating GST, so it worked in my favour (the exchange rate was actually 1.045). Then I went to a Service Canada center with my bill of sale, the customs GST form, and a completed "Application for Pleasure Craft Licence". They gave me a licence number on the spot. Now all I have to do is put the licence number stickers on the hull.
Done like dinner. Super easy. It was only 10h of driving total, and I save $4000 on the boat alone. While down there we bought about $1400 of other stuff, saving probably $1000 on that, and only ended up paying the GST at the border. I think that at 1:00AM the customs agents did not want to have the hassle of calculating the duty on 100s of items. We had bought probably 100 items from Bath and Body Works plus quite a bit of other stuff. It would have taken probably an hour to figure out the duty, and most of it was made in the US anyway.
Moral of this story? Don't let Canadian dealers (or is it the manufacturers? not sure) rip you off!! 80% of Canadians live closer to the boarder than me, so it should be less driving. Keep you money in your pocket!!
