Why did I pay customs for bringing goods?

[mhbin]

Hello everyone,
I moved to Canada as a PR on 2018. I had my books from my home country shipped to me several times and never paid any duties or taxes before. For the last package though, DHL asked me to pay $20 for the customs. I don't know why it happened this time. The only difference from the previous shipment was my address, I moved to a new place.
Why do you think I was charged?
Thanks.

 

[steaky]

Perhaps they were the latest edition (issued after you settled in Canada)?

 

[21Goose]

You may well just have been lucky the previous few times. Anytime you get anything shipped from abroad (especially new things), you may be liable to pay customs duties.

 

[Bs65]

Unfortunately immigration to Canada does not operate in a perpetual duty free zone so as said above maybe you were lucky before.

 

[mhbin]

I will have my books (more than 500) shipped to Canada soon. I listed them in my “Goods to follow” list at my first landing. Will I pay taxes for them too? I thought those items would be exempt from any taxation.

 

[zardoz]

I will have my books (more than 500) shipped to Canada soon. I listed them in my “Goods to follow” list at my first landing. Will I pay taxes for them too? I thought those items would be exempt from any taxation.

If you have them listed on the stamped BSF186 as "goods to follow", you will not need to pay duty or taxes on them. However, you will need to go through a proper importation procedure so that the BSF186 can be matched against the import. There is no practical way to do this if you are just having stuff mailed to your address.

 

[mhbin]

If you have them listed on the stamped BSF186 as "goods to follow", you will not need to pay duty or taxes on them. However, you will need to go through a proper importation procedure so that the BSF186 can be matched against the import. There is no practical way to do this if you are just having stuff mailed to your address.

Thanks. I think it happened because the books were shipped from a store. Probably they thought that they were not my personal belongings.
But still it is interesting that I hadn't paid anything for the previous shipments.