Hi Ron,
Have just gone through the Canadian duty biz with the importation of my Thorn New Raven frameset. Let me go through your questions:
As near as I can figure out, crazy Canadian duty rates are as follows. Please correct me if I am in error.
Complete bike 13%
Assembled wheel 6%
Bicycle frame 5%
All other bicycle parts duty free
First, please send me an email through the Thorn Forum "messages" facility, and I'll send you back an email with a PDF doc of the sections of the Tariff Codes related to bicycles. (I got this from a very well-informed and helpful CBSA agent earlier this year.)
Second, your figures are close to entirely correct:
> Complete bike: 13% duty
> Assembled wheel: 6.5% duty
> Frame: 5%
> All components, including forks: no duty
Third, HST or GST + PST is charged on
original price in Cdn $ + duty, with shipping excluded.
Fourth, what actually happens with duty, etc., may not match points 2 & 3 above. Thus:
> Thorn lists a single price for the Raven frameset and forks, whereas the Nomad frameset and forks are listed separately. I imported a Raven frameset and forks, and Thorn couldn't break out the costs. But, as it turned out, CBSA did not charge duty on any of my Raven shipment -- Thorn labelled it "bicycle parts", and I gues 'cos the total cost wasn't very very high, I wound up paying only HST on the package.
> Of course, Sod's Law dictates that, had I imported built-up wheels with the expensive Rohloff and SON hubs, I'd have paid the 6.5% duty... Ditto if I'd imported a complete bike.
Fifth, I found the arithmetic both complex and variable,
and the pound/dollar exchange rate worked against me. I began the discussion of a purchase in March 2013, when the pound was $1.56. By the time I made my purchase in August, the rate was $1.66. Bummer...
Let me summarize my calculations:
> The cost of duty on an assembled bike, plus the deteriorating exchange rate, plus the fact that HST is levied on bike + duty, meant that the costs of a complete bike (including shipping) put the final cost of a Raven into the mid-$5000 range. And at that, I'd still have to get things like my preferred VO rando bars here.
> Even buying assembled wheels became expensive, because the 6.5% duty (hence higher HST) would be levied on the expensive hubs -- bear in mind that the Rohloff is the most expensive single component of the entire project.
> Thorn's prices for components as components in a built-up bike or assembled wheel are much lower than if you buy the items from SJS online. A very good business approach on their part, but the combination of the deteriorating C$ and high duties here made buying the whole bike, or even assembled wheels, prohibitive.
> So, I did what I understand buyers in Oz or NZ often do: purchased the frame & forks from Thorn (the frameset, happily, includes both a headset and seatpost), plus some spares and key things like accessory bars; purchased my hubs online from Germany; and will get my LBS to source some components from North American suppliers like Velo Orange (nice alloy fenders and my wide rando bars), build my wheels and assemble the bike. Final costs remain to be calculated exactly, but I think will run out about C$3500 and change. Not cheap, but a whole lot less than $5500, or the similar price one would pay for a Tout Terrain from Peter White.
Hope this is helpful, Ron.
