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From: Black Swan (no email)
Date: Sat Sep 04 2004 - 01:43:49 EDT
If the boat has a current registration it will be registered with the CCRA
- Canada Customs and Revenue Agency. In British Columbia, simple boat
registrations are designated by a "K" number, The numerical digits before
the K indicates which "port of entry" the boat is registered in. As an
example, 13K indicates a boat originally was registered at the Canada
Customs office at the Huntingdon/Sumas border crossing. Most boats in the
Fraser Valley will have this prefix.
The transfer of ownership and registration is done at the original port of
entry, or you can take the current registration, properly filled out and
"signed off" by the previous owner, along with your bill of sale, to any
Canada Customs office, and they should be able to process the transfer of
registration for you. This service is (or at least used to be) free. But
here's the catch...
All sales transactions in the Province of B.C., whether done with a
business or with a private individual, are subject to a Provincial Sales
Tax of 7.5%. Of course many transactions take place with no sales tax
collected or submitted. The obvious areas where you cannot avoid sales tax
are things which require any kind of official transfer of registration,
such as motor vehicles. But, you say, the boat registration is a Federal
matter, so why not just keep quiet and hope to be ignored? Aha! the tricky
b at stards have a surprise in store for you!
Canada Customs has a cozy little "information sharing agreement" with the
Provincial Taxation Branch. If you are dealing with a commercial sales
entity, they will have a "vendors license" and are obligated to charge you
the Provincial Sales tax on the selling price of the boat, They will also
submit this amount to the Provincial Ministry, ostensibly on your
behalf. This tax transaction will be indicated on your bill of sale.
If you are buying your boat from an individual, unless he is a
Provincially registered vendor, he likely won't charge or collect the
sales tax, but shortly after you execute the transfer of registration with
Canada Customs, you'll be getting a call from a friendly man with the
Provincial tax department. D at mn revenoors!
As far as import or export fees or taxes for taking a boat into the States,
contact U.S. Customs. They'll be able to steer you in the right direction.
At 09:09 AM 9/3/2004 -0700, De Clarke wrote:
>The deal is just about closed on the boat I'm trying to buy up in
>Canada. Now I have to find out about the rules and regs surrounding
>tax, licensing, and import into the US.
>
>Last I looked at US Customs docs, the import duty on boats post-NAFTA
>was 1 percent, so that is not a big deal.
>
>Tax/licensing seems potentially scarier. The boat will remain in Canada
>for some months -- at least 9 months -- pending some repair and upgrade
>activity. Question is, do I need to pay taxes in BC and license the
>boat there? Is there some "grace period", and how long is it? If I pay
>taxes and license the boat in BC, what will the State of CA require when
>I bring the boat into the US later on? I know someone, somewhere, is
>going to demand sales/use tax on this boat. But who, and when?
>
>Doing the wrong thing with vessel licensing and taxation can lead to
>all kinds of persecution by officials at distant desks, so I'd like
>to tread carefully. I've been googling for info on "canada boat tax"
>and "canada vessel purchase" and so forth, but oddly am not finding
>much. Does anyone know of a good source of info, preferably a nice
>simple checklist of steps to go through and people to contact, to make
>a freshly-purchased boat all legal and documented? (I don't mean
>"documented" in the US sense, what the Canadians call "registered" --
>just documented as in "has some paperwork").
>
>I know this is a bit OT, not having strictly to do with living aboard
>(though I do plan to live aboard this boat when I retire); but there's
>such a deep pool of experience on this list that I thought someone might
>know the answers... by all means redirect me to a better group or
>list for this question, if it's inappropriate here...
>
>de
>
>--
>.............................................................................
>:De Clarke, Software Engineer UCO/Lick Observatory, UCSC:
>:Mail: | Your planet's immune system is trying to get rid :
>:Web: www.ucolick.org | of you. --Kurt Vonnegut :
>:1024D/B9C9E76E | F892 5F17 8E0A F095 05CD EE8B D169 EDAA B9C9 E76E:
>
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