Taxes in Canada and USA

I will be spending a few days in Canada and the USA.
Need some general info on the taxes payable in the 2 countries.

Specific areas of travel are Ontario, Nova Scotia, Pennsylvania, New
York City, Virginia, Washington.

Taxes related to hotels, food and transport cannot be avoided.
If you are going to spend money on clothing,gifts and entertainment,
where would you get the best value for money in terms of overall price
to be paid?

Thanks,
Harold

On 20 Apr 2004 19:46:18 -0700, (H J Angus) wrote:

I will be spending a few days in Canada and the USA.
Need some general info on the taxes payable in the 2 countries.

Specific areas of travel are Ontario, Nova Scotia, Pennsylvania, New
York City, Virginia, Washington.

Taxes related to hotels, food and transport cannot be avoided.
If you are going to spend money on clothing,gifts and entertainment,
where would you get the best value for money in terms of overall price
to be paid?

Thanks,
Harold

Of course, generally speaking, clothing is a hell of a lot cheaper in
Malaysia, but I guess that doesn't include exports from the U.S.
You'll notice that most clothing for sale in U.S. stores is imported
from elsewhere, though.

For clothing purchases under $100, there's no tax in New York, but New
York has a high sales tax for most other purchases. In the U.S., each
state can set its own sales tax (and in some cases, localities like
New York City can put additional percentage points onto that tax), and
there's no national sales tax. IIRC, Canada has a substantial VAT (I
think the rates differ from province to province?), but it can be
refunded.

From this table, it looks like national VAT in Canada is 7% but with
provincial VAT added, the total is 15%:

http://www.booksellers.org.uk/newlib...ocument_id=468

You cannot get a refund of state/local sales tax you paid in the U.S.

Here's a table of state sales tax rates in the U.S., but note that it
doesn't show local sales taxes (e.g., in New York City, the sales tax
is 8.25%):

http://www.taxadmin.org/fta/rate/sales.html

I think that what is a good value in entertainment is often not
directly related to the amount of money one pays, let alone tax (and
the prices for tickets and cover charges to performances is generally
a round number and seemingly not subject to sales tax). Entertainment
may often be expensive in New York, but the quality of the artists
this city attracts is often outstanding. I daresay that isn't as true
of places where entertainment is substantially cheaper.

I think your best bet for clothing, unless you're really looking for
specialty items, would be to go to big factory outlets. I'm no expert
on those, though, and the ones I'm familiar with are outside the
states you mention you'll visit. Seems to me that you'll probably go
through New Jersey on the way to Pennsylvania, though. Flemington, NJ
has a pleasant, quaint center and on its outskirts are all sorts of
factory outlets.

Michael

If you would like to send a private email to me, please take out the TRASH, so to speak. Please do not email me something which you also posted.

"H J Angus" wrote in message
om...
I will be spending a few days in Canada and the USA.
Need some general info on the taxes payable in the 2 countries.

Specific areas of travel are Ontario, Nova Scotia, Pennsylvania, New
York City, Virginia, Washington.

Taxes related to hotels, food and transport cannot be avoided.
If you are going to spend money on clothing,gifts and entertainment,
where would you get the best value for money in terms of overall price
to be paid?

Thanks,
Harold

You may be entitled to a refund on some of the taxes you pay while in
Canada.

http://www.ccra-adrc.gc.ca/tax/nonre...ors/tax-e.html

(H J Angus) wrote:
I will be spending a few days in Canada and the USA.
Need some general info on the taxes payable in the 2 countries.

Specific areas of travel are Ontario, Nova Scotia, Pennsylvania, New
York City, Virginia, Washington.

Taxes related to hotels, food and transport cannot be avoided.
If you are going to spend money on clothing,gifts and entertainment,
where would you get the best value for money in terms of overall price
to be paid?


If you are from out of the country you can get a refund on any sales taxes
paid in Canada. Keep all your receipts, you can make a claim (not sure
where...) and get back any HST / GST / Provincial sales taxes.

"gman99" wrote in message
...
(H J Angus) wrote:
I will be spending a few days in Canada and the USA.
Need some general info on the taxes payable in the 2 countries.

Specific areas of travel are Ontario, Nova Scotia, Pennsylvania, New
York City, Virginia, Washington.

Taxes related to hotels, food and transport cannot be avoided.
If you are going to spend money on clothing,gifts and entertainment,
where would you get the best value for money in terms of overall price
to be paid?


If you are from out of the country you can get a refund on any sales taxes
paid in Canada. Keep all your receipts, you can make a claim (not sure
where...) and get back any HST / GST / Provincial sales taxes.

________________

Major Border Crossings between Canada and the US have Canadian 'Duty Free
Stores' which can handle your Tax Refunds. Airports have equal facilities.
Keep all your receipts that list any GST tax charged. To save time and for
safety add up the amounts before you apply for your refund..

Originally posted by Gman99

If you are from out of
the country you can get a refund on any sales taxes
paid in Canada.
Keep all your receipts, you can make a claim (not sure
where...) and
get back any HST / GST / Provincial sales taxes.

I found this
link usefull for ontario situation...


www.goniagarafalls.com/taxes.html

In a nutshell you can
get the GST back (that is the Federal 7%) but only if the total value of
the goods claimed before tax exceeds $200 , and each original reciept is
for at least $50.

Either mail the form or do it at the duty free shops.


You cannot get the 8% Provincial PST back unless the purchase has a
value of at least $625 before taxes are applied ($50 PST). You need to
get the form for this from the address on the link above.

Your rebate
will be a cheque in Canadian funds, so you may lose some of it to the
bank on converting it.

Enjoy your trip

Iain


--
Posted via http://britishexpats.com

In article ,
(H J Angus) wrote:

I will be spending a few days in Canada and the USA.
Need some general info on the taxes payable in the 2 countries.

Specific areas of travel are Ontario, Nova Scotia, Pennsylvania, New
York City, Virginia, Washington.

Pennyslvania has (or at leats used to have) no sales tax on shoes and
clothing.

Taxes related to hotels, food and transport cannot be avoided.
If you are going to spend money on clothing,gifts and entertainment,
where would you get the best value for money in terms of overall price
to be paid?

Thanks,
Harold

I'll speak just about PA.

PA has a 6% sales tax. In the counties associated with the biggest cities,
Pittsburgh & Philadelphia, the county adds an additional 1% sales tax for a
total of 7%.

http://www.revenue.state.pa.us/reven...ue/rev-717.pdf shows what
is and is not taxable, but I can summarize:

Generally clothing is not taxable, but souvenirs like small gifts would be
taxable. Entertainment will be taxed, but probably not sales tax rules.

As far as best value, I wasn't sure if you meant which specific areas within
each state, or comparatively between the states.

Unless you were purchasing large dollar value items, the tax differences
between the US states should be negligible. Pennsylvania is a big place,
with the Philadelphia(East PA) area generally having a higher cost of
living(and stuff just being more expensive) than Pittsburgh(West PA). Deals
can be had in either city. Someone mentioned the factory outlets, and those
are generally a good idea. Be careful though, certain outlet stores sell
ONLY defective/reject merchandise ---- which might be subtle in the ways
they are defective.

HTH
Keith
Pittsburgh

----- Original Message -----
From: "H J Angus"
Newsgroups: rec.travel.usa-canada
Sent: Tuesday, April 20, 2004 10:46 PM
Subject: Taxes in Canada and USA


I will be spending a few days in Canada and the USA.
Need some general info on the taxes payable in the 2 countries.

Specific areas of travel are Ontario, Nova Scotia, Pennsylvania, New
York City, Virginia, Washington.

Taxes related to hotels, food and transport cannot be avoided.
If you are going to spend money on clothing,gifts and entertainment,
where would you get the best value for money in terms of overall price
to be paid?

Thanks,
Harold

I will be spending a few days in Canada and the USA...
If you are going to spend money on clothing, gifts
and entertainment, where would you get the best
value for money in terms of overall price to be paid?

As others have mentioned, tax differences between the
states will only affect your price by a few percent. A
bigger factor would be to find stores that have lower
prices to begin with (discount stores, factory outlets,
etc), and to look for stores that are having sales.

But if you're in the country for only a few days, you might
want to consider whether it's really worth spending much
of your valuable vacation time seeking out the cheapest
prices. A store that is convenient to your hotel might not
have the cheapest prices, but shopping there might be quicker
and thus you'd have more time for sightseeing.

James




++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Remove "NOSPAM" from my address when sending me e-mail.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
-

H J Angus wrote:

I will be spending a few days in Canada and the USA.
Need some general info on the taxes payable in the 2 countries.

Specific areas of travel are Ontario, Nova Scotia, Pennsylvania, New
York City, Virginia, Washington.

Taxes related to hotels, food and transport cannot be avoided.
If you are going to spend money on clothing,gifts and entertainment,
where would you get the best value for money in terms of overall price
to be paid?

In Canada you can get a refund of hotel taxes directly by mail or from a
duty-free shop. All you need is your hotel receipt showing the tax and a
simple form that you can get from the hotel or any duty free shop in
Canada.

For purchases, you can get a tax refund if the total of the receipt is 50
CDN or more. YOU MUST GET THE RECEIPT VALIDATED AT THE BORDER WHEN YOU
LEAVE. You can do this at airports, where there are counters specifically
set up to do this, or at duty free shops. You use the same form you use
for the hotel taxes.

One scam to watch for is forms that look like the official government
form, but are actually from "agents" who will do the processing for you
and deduct a percentage of the refund before you get it.

In the US there is no refund of sales taxes, which are only levied by
states and governments within states (counties, towns, etc).. You can
avoid sales tax by having the items shipped out of the state or the
country. There are over 3,500 taxing authorities in the US that collect
sales tax, so it is impossible to tell you what the tax will be in any
particular place without a fair bit of research. Typically sales taxes
vary from about 3% to 8.5% for purchases, and a lot more for certain
services (e.g., in NYC, the tax on parking is 18%). Certain items are
exempt from tax, but this varies by taxing entity also. Usually food
purchased for home use is exempt (but restaurants are not). In NJ clothing
is exempt from tax, but not in NYC. So it's best not to worry about it.

Larry
--
Larry Finch

N 40° 53' 47"
W 74° 03' 56"