Cross-Border Shopping Article Updated

[imageswest]

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[andreasb]

Thank You Cliff for summarizing this, very useful. I have two things to add to this:

The border guards when I have brought Cameras and lenses go over to their computer and check real value of goods on the Internet at Ebay and B&H and other places. You might want to consider not asking the seller to provide a lower value on the receipt, then actual.
Often people on Ebay or Internet stores wont ship outside of the US. For people that live close to the border, and many in Canada do, you could consider getting a mailbox address in some of the border towns, like Point Roberts or Blaine for us on the West Coast. There are several companies in These places that provide a service where they write the address in such a way that it doesn't look like a mailbox address (many internet buyers wont ship to mailboxes) so for instance my address is in the form of #123 at 456 Tyhee Drive, Point Roberts, WA (no that is not my address ;) ) too look like an apartment number in a building. These places charge a fee for their mailbox services and are often UPS and or FedEX outlets. I (for now) use the Letter Carrier in Point Roberts. It is quite a messy place sometimes they have a hard time finding your packages and I will move (when my contract is up) to the one just past the Post Office in Point Roberts, seems to be a much more orderly place. Then you just go across the border, tell them you have a mailbox and are going to check it, go back and declare and pay taxes on your goods.