[HN Gopher] Adding unusable RAM for tax reasons
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Adding unusable RAM for tax reasons
Author : NieDzejkob
Score : 155 points
Date : 2022-01-20 17:11 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cpcwiki.eu)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cpcwiki.eu)
| cromka wrote:
| > Without the stiff competition of the smaller, lighter, easier-
| to-drive, and more fuel efficient import pickups and vans,
| Detroit automakers were no longer required to keep pace with
| innovation of foreign brands.
|
| One has to wonder how much this innocent-looking levy contributed
| to the overall global warming situation, by never having the US
| automakers to be incentivized to manufacture more efficient
| commercial fleet, and, as such, inbreeding the culture of buying
| the overly big pick ups and SUVs with massive engines for private
| use, too.
| putlake wrote:
| NPR's Marketplace had a fascinating story about something similar
| in the apparel business. They design pockets in various types of
| clothing to reduce tariffs.
|
| https://www.marketplace.org/2019/05/29/theres-a-reason-your-...
|
| Example from the article:
|
| Certain women's garments with "pockets below the waist" get lower
| duty rates than those without. Because of that, a number of the
| women's shirts Columbia Sportswear makes are intentionally
| designed with tiny pockets near the waistline, which lowers the
| cost of importing them. One of the company's shorthands for
| "pockets below the waist" is "nurse's pocket."
| FroshKiller wrote:
| Marketplace is produced by American Public Media, not National
| Public Radio.
| imposterr wrote:
| Archive link: https://archive.fo/Qlsx2
| AviationAtom wrote:
| Thanks, kind neighbor. It appears to be hugged to death
| already.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Pistols manufactured in Mexico are imported as a kit of parts,
| then assembled as "Made in America!"
| SMAAART wrote:
| Tax is the reason why Converse sneakers have fuzzy bottoms
| https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-why-converse-sneakers-...
| sparkling wrote:
| Something similar: for the original Playstation 2 that was sold
| in the EU, Sony included a DVD with a BASIC interpreter to
| classify the console as a personal computer. This little hack
| avoided some EU import taxes back in the day.
|
| https://www.theregister.com/2000/11/07/sony_adds_basic_to_pl...
| rasz wrote:
| Same with 29.59 min video recording limit on tons of cameras.
| https://www.borrowlenses.com/blog/video-recording-limits-in-...
|
| "In 2006, the European Union created a law that added an import
| duty of 5-12% to any video camera. What determined whether a
| camera was a video camera? In short, the ability to record
| longer than 30 minutes. Thus, companies like Canon and Nikon
| decided to cap their video clip lengths, preventing their
| enthusiast and prosumer cameras from being considered video
| cameras."
| Gigachad wrote:
| Still seems like a win as it made the console more useful.
| Johnie wrote:
| This is like how tax policies gave rise to White Claw
| https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/09/how-tax-policy-gave-...
| sodality2 wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20211204094705/https://www.cpcwi...
| cybervegan wrote:
| That's so unethical - and Alan Sugar is held up as an example of
| a business genius?
| Isthatablackgsd wrote:
| Funny enough, I learnt about this from Noel's Retro Lab YT
| channel last week [0]. When I saw the title, I figured it is
| about CPC 472 before loading the page. Yup it is. I recommend a
| video to watch, it is fascinating of why they did and Noel shows
| the breakdown of this unusable RAM in the video.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ErfWfjN9iU
| rietta wrote:
| Glock ships their Glock 19 from Austria to Smyrna, Georgia, with
| adjustable target sights to have enough points under US import
| law and then an armorer changes those sights to their fixed self
| defense sights to be sold in the US market. Presumably the sights
| get shipped back to Austria for the next batch.
| eb0la wrote:
| Taxes are one of the most powerful incentives in the world.
|
| For instance, dumping positions at loss before new years eve
| might help you with your tax bill since you have losses.
|
| And of course, setting up a company in a country where you did
| buy a lot of spectrum and you have huge losses, effectively
| creating a tax credit (
| https://www.reuters.com/article/telefonica-germany/update-2-... )
| djrogers wrote:
| Selling stocks at a loss is only helpful in the short term, or
| if you don't think those stocks are going back up. If you
| harvest a loss for a tax deduction on December 31, and the
| stock goes back up by the end of January so you'd be even, you
| are way behind - because the loss only comes back to you at
| your highest tax rate.
| brilee wrote:
| Figuring out how to defer taxes is equivalent to receiving a
| free loan from the government, which can be used to profit on
| the float.
| vmception wrote:
| > and the stock goes back up by the end of January so you'd
| be even, you are way behind
|
| there are ETFs created for the sole purpose of circumventing
| this, by providing exposure to the same asset or market
| forces
|
| the wash sale regulation has amendment aimed at preventing
| this by prohibiting trades of "substantially similar
| securities", but I don't think it passes muster or has any
| teeth. you report all the trades to the IRS its up to them to
| figure out if your UltraShares 3x Inverse Pez Dispenser ETF
| is substantially similar to the Direxion one
| MR4D wrote:
| Not quite true.
|
| For instance, I could sell my losses in a growth fund only to
| buy a different growth fund (not the same index though) and I
| get to stay in the market.
|
| Ideally you would do this on day 364 of losses to maximize
| the tax incentive.
| djrogers wrote:
| It's not a tax incentive though - an incentive encourages
| you to do something, nobody is encouraged to _lose money_.
| Also, if one were to do the above, and the growth fund went
| up, you 'd wind up paying taxes on that gain which would
| offset the tax deduction you took on the loss when you
| eventually sold it, whereas you could have just stayed in,
| waited for it to go back up, and you'd be at a wash.
|
| If someone followed your advice exactly and sold on day 364
| vs staying in they'd lose even more, as by the time the
| initial investment goes back up (after day 365) you'd be in
| long-term capital gains territory, which is a lower tax
| rate.
|
| That's why I said it only works in the short term -
| eventually the gov't is gonna get it's money.
| laurencerowe wrote:
| While the benefits are limited, there are advantages:
|
| 1. Harvesting your capital losses allows you to offset
| other gains which may be taxable at an earlier date.
| $1000 today is worth substantially more than $1000 in 10
| years time. 'Tax deferred is tax avoided.'
|
| 2. You can offset up to $3000 of losses a year against
| regular income which is taxed at a higher rate.
|
| For me at least while it seems worthwhile to switch index
| funds to harvest losses when the market falls
| substantially the upsides aren't enough to justify the
| lock in of using something like Betterment's automatic
| tax loss harvesting features of their platform by having
| you invest in many individual stocks managed by their
| roboadvisor rather than an index fund.
| MR4D wrote:
| They are encouraging people to sell.
|
| Most people wouldn't care, but if you're in a high tax
| bracket and you can sell one to buy another and keep your
| risk profile roughly the same, you'll do it.
|
| People prefer to pay long term gains and take short term
| losses. The benefits work in your favor and against the
| govt. The tax code reflects that, and has for a long
| time.
| hllooo wrote:
| it can work if you're offsetting existing short term
| gains and hold the replacement for >1 year, or if the
| stock never recovers, in which case you pull forward the
| deduction
| mhh__ wrote:
| This is why Carbon Taxes should be preferred over the state
| dictating policies to companies.
| acdha wrote:
| Preferred, but you often need more nuance than that -- for
| example, if a carbon tax is set high enough to deter
| profitable heavy industrial activities it would require care
| not to have a disproportionate impact on people who depend on
| cars, non-electric heating, etc. Those can be mitigated, of
| course, but it starts to make the tax policy a lot more
| complicated.
|
| The other problem is that we probably had time for a carbon
| tax when the idea was first advanced decades ago. It's not
| clear to me that we can afford a gradual approach now when we
| really need to be doing things like saying you just can't buy
| new coal burning equipment at any price, for example.
| Gigachad wrote:
| Carbon taxes are set up so they cancel regular taxes. So if
| you use the average amount of greenhouse gasses, you come
| out equal, if you use more than the average, you come out
| worse, and if you use less than the average you come out
| better. So overnight not a whole lot changes but everyone
| enters a race to use the least greenhouse gasses.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| Carbon taxes seem to be pretty unpopular and I think it's a
| failure of imagination for climate economists to keep
| repeating the same idea instead of trying to find things that
| are more palatable.
| Teknoman117 wrote:
| Of course they're unpopular. No one wants to pay for the
| total lifecycle costs of what they do.
| young_unixer wrote:
| Being against climate change and against carbon taxes at
| the same time basically boils down to "I want everyone else
| to work hard on solving this problem, except for me. I want
| to keep benefiting from the low prices that the pollution
| economy has made possible, but I don't want any pollution."
|
| I don't think there's any reasonable solution that will
| appease those people.
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| Maybe I'm too pessimistic, but I'm pretty sure any solution
| that is drastic enough to actually work will be
| unpalatable. "Somebody else will pay for it" is the only
| solution anyone wants to hear.
| 8ytecoder wrote:
| Important to note that you can't buy back the same
| stock/instrument and claim capital loss in most countries
| fragmede wrote:
| Tis a _very_ important note for as an amature tax-
| advantageous practice! You _can_ buy something similar,
| though. eg trade AMD for Intel or some such. Where investors
| are concerned about markets rather than invidivuals stocks
| (AMD and INTC are both hardware tech stocks), the notion is
| that a rising tide lifts all boats, and that large, sector-
| related good news for Intel is good news for AMD. It 's not
| strictly true, obviously, but it's close enough that the
| practice is worthwhile.
| geocrasher wrote:
| This reminds me of the Subaru BRAT in the early '80s. There was a
| 25% tarrif on imported pickups. So Subaru added two plastic jump
| seats in the back of the BRAT, even making them face backwards.
| No seat belts as I recall just handles. They weren't even really
| intended to be used. They were just cheap plastic. But they
| served the purpose of making the vehicle a four-seater car
| instead of a pickup, with only a 2.5% tarrif.
|
| Tarrif averted, thousands sold!
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subaru_BRAT
| bko wrote:
| That's fascinating. I remember hearing there about a giant book
| on import taxes on apparel with various definitions. For
| instance, "sandals" may be taxed X but "open toed shoes" may be
| taxed Y. Apparently these rates drive fashion trends to an
| incredible degree where even small modifications to a product
| could totally change the economics.
| eli wrote:
| There's a famous example that Converse All Stars included a
| very thin fuzzy lining along the outside of the soles so that
| they could qualify under the "slipper" tax instead of the
| higher "sneaker" tax.
| matsur wrote:
| Said giant book: https://hts.usitc.gov/current
| bko wrote:
| The legends are true.
|
| The differences could be huge
|
| > Footwear with open toes or open heels; footwear of the
| slip-on type, that is held to the foot without the use of
| laces or buckles or other fasteners, the foregoing except
| footwear of subheading 6402.99.33 and except footwear
| having a foxing or a foxing-like band wholly or almost
| wholly of rubber or plastics applied or molded at the sole
| and overlapping the upper:
|
| >> Having outer soles with textile materials having the
| greatest surface area in contact with the ground, but not
| taken into account under the terms of additional U.S. note
| 5 to this chapter 12.5%
|
| >> Other 37.5%
|
| > Sandals and similar footwear of plastics, produced in one
| piece by molding. 3%
| albatross13 wrote:
| Life uh...finds a way.
| philk10 wrote:
| Are Jaffa cakes classed as biscuits or cakes?
| https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-38985820
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| That's a great article. Dives into philosophy without getting
| wishy-washy. Must have been a fun article to write.
|
| > And if it's true to say, "a Jaffa Cake is a cake" (or "a
| Jaffa Cake is a biscuit") then that also tells us something
| about the world, i.e. about the properties of a Jaffa Cake,
| as well as about the meaning of the word "cake".
|
| And of course it's even more fun because I have to mentally
| substitute "cookie" every time I read "biscuit".
| philk10 wrote:
| yeh, as a Brit who's been in the US for 10 years now i
| still have to do the cookie/biscuit chips/crisps
| fries/chips thing
| kingcharles wrote:
| LOL. Same.
| inanutshellus wrote:
| now you've got me wondering about those old Fig Newtons
| commercials "it's not a cookie, it's fruited cake!"
| HeavenFox wrote:
| There's also the Ford vs Chicken Tax; basically U.S. import
| tariff for passenger van is 2.5% and cargo van is 25%, so Ford,
| which manufactured their Transit van in Turkey, installed seats
| in factory and stripped the seats once they arrived in the U.S.
|
| Now looks like they are in trouble for this scheme.
|
| https://jalopnik.com/ford-faces-potential-1-3-billion-fine-f...
|
| (And why it's called Chicken Tax is another fascinating
| story...)
| bentcorner wrote:
| There's also the infamous _Toy Biz, Inc. v. United States_
| case where Marvel Comics argued that their X-Men toys where
| "nonhuman toys" and not dolls to avoid an import tax.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_Biz%2C_Inc._v._United_Stat.
| ..
|
| The irony is that in the X-Men universe, the X-Men fight for
| a unification of mutants and humans.
| autoexec wrote:
| Still, technically true though I'd think. Mutants aren't
| human. The X-Gene makes them "Homo sapiens superior" and
| distinguishes them from humans who were mutated by other
| means (radiation, spider bites, etc). Do X-men want to
| erase the distinction or do they just want peaceful
| coexistence between the two species?
| quietbritishjim wrote:
| I'm not saying this would affect a court ruling, but as a
| point of curiosity: technically "human" means the _homo_
| genus, not just the _sapiens_ species. So Neanderthals
| for example, or _homo erectus_ , are both human. The
| X-men would be human too, if they were indeed _homo
| sapiens superior_.
| cgriswald wrote:
| As species boundaries go, human/mutant is incredibly
| arbitrary. Either a mutant or a human can be created from
| a pairing of human-human, mutant-human, or mutant-mutant.
| It would be like classifying blonde people as a different
| species.
| notch656a wrote:
| I'm guessing they're only trouble because they took the seats
| out. Probably cheaper just to leave them in, and sell along
| with wrench to remove them 'in case it's needed for repair.'
| A friendly source will publish in a trade magazine it's the
| same van after 12 minutes to remove the seats, and the scheme
| will continue.
| fredoralive wrote:
| According to an article about it[1], Ford also removed /
| panelled in various windows as well, so conversion probably
| isn't as trivially DIYable as just removing some token
| seats.
|
| Although I suppose van buyers are slightly more likely to
| know someone with a welding torch and some steel sheets
| than the average person, so perhaps they missed a trick...
|
| [1]https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/SB125357990638429655
| Hokusai wrote:
| > Now looks like they are in trouble for this scheme.
|
| All these cheats will never be accepted for working
| individuals. Corporations get a different flavor of justice.
| Even then they push it to the limits and dinner times find a
| burocrat in the pertinent agency willing to push forward a
| rightful punishment.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| SMB and sole proprietorships get away with ridiculous tax
| things constantly! The only difference is they usually
| don't try to take it to the Supreme Court when the IRS
| audits them.
| Pasorrijer wrote:
| Yeah I remember reading that the Ford employees on the US
| side got the removal time down to 12 minutes a van.
| gumby wrote:
| Given the cost of labor it was probably worth doing some
| design engineering to make the removal as easy as possible
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Perhaps a more relevant and legally robust example is the
| Mercedes Benz Sprinter, which is manufactured in Germany, but
| US-bound vehicles have various parts removed before shipping.
| A facility in NC reassembles the vehicles (the removed parts
| are shipped with the van) once they arrive, which reduces or
| eliminates the tax.
| jrockway wrote:
| Wow. I hope the government loses their lawsuit here. Customs
| & Border Protection should have absolutely no jurisdiction
| over what an item is used for once it enters the country.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| Ford lost in 2019. An appeal to the Supreme Court was
| denied.[0] My non-lawyer understand of the issue wasn't so
| much that they were avoiding a tariff ("tariff
| engineering"), but that they were removing the seats upon
| entry. In contrast with the BRAT where the dummy seats were
| still there when sold.
|
| [0]: https://www.autoblog.com/2021/06/03/ford-transit-
| connect-imp...
| nathanvanfleet wrote:
| So in your view they just felt like adding seats and then
| removing them later?
| harles wrote:
| I'd expect some were also sold with the seats, they just
| changed the default config. I wonder what the ratio was
| though.
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| This doesn't really assuage his concern. The government
| is still dictating what you do with items.
|
| CBP is one of the worst infringers upon personal rights,
| I wouldn't defend them.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The government is still dictating what you do with
| items.
|
| Well, no, they are dictating what taxes you owe based on
| intent, and using consistent patterns of behavior as
| evidence of ongoing intent.
|
| This isn't Ford _changing their mind_ about the purpose
| of the vehicle after importing them.
| babypuncher wrote:
| They aren't telling you what you can do with your items.
| They are telling you what taxes you owe based on the
| intended function of said item.
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| The power to tax is the power to destroy. The same
| overzealous power they have to tell me what my usage
| intent was also allows them to totally ban items that
| aren't actually banned.
| etskinner wrote:
| I wonder if they could, in theory, sell you the car for
| 150% of it's final price (so that they seats are there
| when sold), then buy back the seats immediately for 50%
| of its price. The invoice would say something like: Car
| with passenger seats: $15,000; Passenger seat buyback:
| $5,000; Total after buyback: $10,000.
|
| That way everyone gets what they want, and they've
| technically sold it with the seats still installed.
| [deleted]
| babypuncher wrote:
| Frankly I think our justice system should be less
| tolerant of "hacks" like this. They clearly violate the
| intent of the law, even if technically following it to
| the letter.
| cgriswald wrote:
| I prefer judges and lawyers interpret what the law says,
| not what they believe lawmakers _meant_ to say. It is
| lawmakers responsibility to craft quality laws. Such
| hacks expose weaknesses in the laws as written.
|
| Edit: ... _when successful._
| dataflow wrote:
| > It is lawmakers responsibility to craft quality laws.
|
| Judging by how hard it is for programmers to write bug-
| free instructions for literal computers, I'm not sure
| your expectation of flawless legislation is something
| realistic for mere mortals.
| noizejoy wrote:
| And I prefer to see judges and lawyers as safety valves
| for mitigating badly written legislation.
| noizejoy wrote:
| While I agree with your well intentioned sentiment,
| "intent" is even more nebulous and arguable.
| laurent92 wrote:
| Isn't a lot of securization necessary for two more seats?
| Adding floor reinforcements, seatbelts, and more
| importantly, passing the crash tests with two more seats?
| [deleted]
| thaeli wrote:
| They have to do that for the passenger version of the van
| anyway.
| kentonv wrote:
| Law isn't interpreted by computers, it is interpreted by
| human judges, who generally aren't impressed by such
| hacks (though you might get lucky).
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Yeah, when the law allows additional sanction for
| willful/knowing violation, courts will not only often see
| through your "clever hack", but also see it as evidence
| of deliberate wrongdoing.
| bjustin wrote:
| And collect tax on $20,000 in sales instead of $10,000?
| Maybe they would be happy if car companies used this
| scheme.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| Then the government would collect income tax _from the
| owner_ on that rebate as well, no? Seems like an
| expensive operation.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| The issue was that the seats were only added for the
| purposes of evading tax, and the tax evasive purpose was
| established by Ford systematically removing the seats prior
| to sale.
|
| Ford would have been fine if they had kept the seats in the
| car until they were sold and left it up to the customer to
| remove the seats. (This would not have affected the
| customer, tax-wise, since the import duty is paid by Ford,
| and by the time the customer has removed the seats, they
| have already paid the sales tax on the vehicle.)
| khuey wrote:
| Why? Borders are full of rules of the form "X can cross for
| purpose A but not for purpose B" for both people and goods.
| jrockway wrote:
| How long does the rule apply for? If someone removes
| seats from their van, is that tax evasion? What if it's
| temporary? If an individual can do it, why not Ford?
|
| The problem I have here is how easy it is to avoid the
| tax. CBP shouldn't have any jurisdiction over car
| modifications and repairs; that responsibility falls to
| different agencies.
| fredoralive wrote:
| It seems that the issue was that Ford, the importer,
| changed the class of vehicle between import and being
| sold inside the US. Presumably if you aren't the importer
| you can go wild (IANAL).
| jrockway wrote:
| Yeah, so they're really just getting punished for not
| dotting their is and crossing their ts. They could create
| a subsidiary with the same board of directors as Ford
| that they sell the cars to, and then the subsidiary does
| the dirty work of repurposing the cars from passenger
| vehicles to cargo vehicles. They skipped paying the $100
| corporate registration fee, so now they're on the hook
| for a billion dollar fine that would have been legal if
| they added another company to the mix? Give me a break.
| gowld wrote:
| You are arguing that because it is possible to break the
| law and escape on a technicality, the law is invalid in
| all cases.
| nybble41 wrote:
| If they "escaped on a technicality" then they weren't
| breaking the law. That "technicality" is part of the law.
|
| The indefensible part is tying a large difference in
| import tariffs to how many seats are installed. Absurd
| outcomes such as this one highlight systematic flaws in
| the rules. If the basis for the tariffs were logically
| sound you wouldn't be able to work around them without
| addressing the reason the tariffs were imposed in the
| first place.
| beerandt wrote:
| No- the norm is for things to be imported, then combined
| or modified and sold as a new product, without paying the
| import tax based on the new product.
|
| If import tax on a cpu is x, and motherboard is y, should
| you have to pay computer import tax z if you build and
| sell PCs? After all, what imported cpus and motherboards
| aren't destined to be assembled computers?
| fredoralive wrote:
| I was more talking about this particular case, where it
| seems it was judged that Ford didn't make a new product
| out of imported parts, but importing a finished vehicle
| as one thing, and selling it as another after minor
| modification.
|
| It is a more normal way around these sorts of tariffs to
| import a vehicle as a kit of parts (CKD / "Complete
| knocked down"), and perform some level of final assembly
| in the end country. The sort of rules you talk about
| apply then, you pay the car parts import rate on the kit,
| not the (presumably higher) rate for a complete car[1].
|
| [1] Or otherwise avoid whatever other protectionist
| measures mean you can't just import a fully built car.
| KarlKemp wrote:
| The fact I can't tell you the individual grain of sand
| that makes the difference does not imply that the concept
| of a "sand beach" is meaningless.
| babypuncher wrote:
| The rule applies to the entity responsible for importing
| the item. Since Ford was importing the vehicle and then
| altering it immediately afterwards to escape the tax,
| they are in the wrong. If they instead sold it as-is to a
| customer, and the customer then made the modification
| themselves, it wouldn't be a problem.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| The courts tend to take a dim view of "clever hacks" to
| get around the law, where the intent is clearly to
| circumvent the law and the action has no other purpose.
| They don't always rule that way. But if you pull this
| kind of stunt, you risk the court saying, "Very clever.
| No."
| gowld wrote:
| Corporate accounting is annindustry that only exist as
| "clever hacks". It usually works, unless you are
| politically out of favor.
| mc32 wrote:
| It was pretty transparent that they did that to circumvent
| regulation.
|
| Imagine Coca-Cola getting clearance for importing coca
| leaves for flavoring but then instead sells it to a third
| party who processes it for something else.
| notch656a wrote:
| Am I the only one that sees no problem with that? Why the
| hell should coca-cola be responsible for what someone
| else does with coca leaves?
| tshaddox wrote:
| > Customs & Border Protection should have absolutely no
| jurisdiction over what an item is used for once it enters
| the country.
|
| I mean, that's the whole point of the import tariff law, so
| if the CBP has jurisdiction to enforce tariff law, surely
| how the item is used (or at least _how the item is intended
| to be used_ or _how the item can reasonably be expected to
| be used_ ) is the primary factor to consider.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| It also goes to show how corrupt the import tax system is.
|
| Why SHOULD a cargo van have higher import taxes than a
| passenger van, other than to serve the needs of some random
| private company?
|
| Even moreso, I wouldn't be surprised if Ford lobbied FOR
| those laws before changing its mind in where to produce a
| particular sku
| nickff wrote:
| > _" Why SHOULD a cargo van have higher import taxes than
| a passenger van, other than to serve the needs of some
| random private company?"_
|
| Have you read a tariff schedule? They're full of this
| stuff, which seem to be protections or favors for
| specific industries. Anti-dumping protections seem
| similar.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| >It also goes to show how corrupt the import tax system
| is.
| nickff wrote:
| I am not sure it is 'corrupt', though that may be a
| question of semantics. I didn't mean to disagree with
| you, just point out how rampant the issue was.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| No lobbying involved. It's the remnants of a tariff war
| with France and Germany:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax
| RC_ITR wrote:
| The Chicken Wars brought the powerful agricultural lobby
| in France into direct conflict with the powerful
| agricultural lobby in the United States. Not
| surprisingly, France, the largest poultry producer in the
| EEC, was unwilling to embrace a free trade policy whose
| benefits would be spread among consumers throughout
| Europe. The benefits of protectionism were concentrated
| in France and the costs were borne by consumers
| throughout Europe. Indeed, the stakes were sufficiently
| high that France might have quit the EEC had not French
| agricultural interests been appeased.
|
| That's from the 'further reading' link on Wikipedia.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| Yes, but I meant lobbying from Ford for said tariff as
| you suggested.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| At the same time, the U.S. auto industry was suffering
| its own trade crisis due to competition from growingly
| popular foreign cars and trucks. During the early 1960s,
| sales of Volkswagens surged as America's love affair with
| the iconic VW "Bug" coupe and Type 2 van shifted into
| overdrive. By 1963, the situation got so bad that Walter
| Reuther, president of the United Automobile Workers Union
| (U.A.W.), threatened a strike that would have halted all
| U.S. auto production just before the 1964 presidential
| election.
|
| Running for reelection and aware of the influence the
| U.A.W. had in Congress and in the minds of voters,
| President Johnson looked for a way to persuade Reuther's
| union not to strike and to support his "Great Society"
| civil rights agenda. Johnson succeeded on both counts by
| agreeing to include light trucks in the Chicken Tax.
|
| While U.S. tariffs on other Chicken Tax items have since
| been rescinded, lobbying efforts by the U.A.W. have kept
| the tariff on light trucks and utility vans alive. As a
| result, American-made trucks still dominate sales in the
| U.S., and some very desirable trucks, like the high-end
| Australian-made Volkswagen Amorak, are not sold in the
| United States.
|
| https://www.thoughtco.com/chicken-tax-4159747
| e4e78a06 wrote:
| "American-made" = all the labor-intensive parts are made
| abroad and only the final car is assembled in the US. The
| USMCA merely requires that a majority or plurality
| (depending on the item) of item content come from a
| member nation.
|
| If there was a war American industry would shut down
| overnight.
| vilaca wrote:
| > benefits would be spread among consumers throughout
| Europe
|
| The EU has banned poultry meat from the US on
| psytosanitary grounds for more than two decades.
| Jon_Lowtek wrote:
| Which is a lot younger than the chicken tax from the
| 1960s
|
| For some context: it is about washing chicken meat with
| chlorine dioxide to kill bacteria, especially salmonella,
| at the slaughterhouse. It may seem ridicoulous that
| europeans prefer salmonella to chlorine on their
| chickens, but european food health and safety argues that
| the practice is needed in the USA due to the very
| unsanitary, and therefor cheaper, chicken meat
| production, whereas europa requires high standards during
| production instead of washing the end product in
| chlorine, and is therefore more costly. Some argue this
| cost difference is the major driver of the ban, and it is
| not an actual health and safety issue.
| w0mbat wrote:
| The US also has more lax rules than Europe has governing
| what food chickens can be fed. Without going into the
| rather revolting details, this is a legitimate reason to
| exclude US chicken.
| jrockway wrote:
| It sounds like the age-old market segmentation thing.
| People driving their kids to soccer practice don't make
| money with their vans, so they'll notice the higher price
| (and if they find out their congresscritter was
| responsible, they'll vote for a different one).
| Meanwhile, cargo vans are used to make money, so the
| users can bear the extra cost. There's also overtones of
| taxation without representation going on here;
| individuals can vote, and so they have lower taxes than
| businesses, which can't vote. (It's too bad that Ford
| doesn't dump the seats they take out of the van into
| Boston Harbor! Someone would probably still get the
| reference.)
|
| It's the same game that SaaS companies play. Everything
| is free until you want SSO, then it's $30,000 a year. If
| you need SSO, you can afford it.
|
| Personally, I hate this in both cases. I think we could
| save everyone a lot of time if every vendor you did
| business with just grabbed you by the ankles and flipped
| you upside down and took whatever money fell out of your
| pocket. Why tiptoe around what they really want...
| gowld wrote:
| Would you prefer that only rich people could buy things?
| Without price discrimination, the market clearing price
| is higher.
| titusjohnson wrote:
| > There's also overtones of taxation without
| representation going on here; individuals can vote, and
| so they have lower taxes than businesses, which can't
| vote.
|
| I'm confused about this statement. Businesses are
| comprised of individuals, and those individuals (if
| citizens) can vote. So the business has a vote through
| the voice of its employees and representation in
| government through the people employees at a business.
|
| Or are you saying the legal fiction of business
| personhood should give the business a ... vote? That just
| sounds like business owners (individuals) getting 2 or
| more votes then...
| slt2021 wrote:
| maybe businesses can't vote, but they can buy votes of
| the congressmen directly.
|
| why go through the hassle of voting and deal with
| uncertainty whether you voted a right person, when you
| can just buy with cash whatever law/regulation you need
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| > Or are you saying the legal fiction of business
| personhood should give the business a ... vote? That just
| sounds like business owners (individuals) getting 2 or
| more votes then...
|
| I believe the more common proposal is to resolve the
| contradiction the other way: remove taxes on
| corporations, as the individuals comprising the
| corporations generally already pay taxes. That would be
| politically quite unpopular, but there is a certain logic
| to it and it would also make taxes easier to administer
| and more difficult to avoid. And it doesn't need to be as
| pro-rich as it sounds - you could just replace
| corporation taxes with other taxes targeting wealthy
| individuals, such as a wealth tax or higher income taxes.
| db65edfc7996 wrote:
| Planet Money did[0] a story about the Chicken Tax.
|
| [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/01/25/511663527/e
| pis...
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| Johnny555 wrote:
| Oddly, the Subaru Baja is much more car-like than the Brat ever
| was (the Baja has 4 real seats, not jump seats), but when I had
| one, it was registered as a pickup, not a car.
| njarboe wrote:
| The "truck" (trucks, SUVs etc) class of vehicles in the US
| have lower average gas mileage requirements than cars so many
| cars are made just large enough to be classified as "trucks"
| even though they are marketed still as cars. Subaru did this
| with almost all their cars back in 2004[1].
|
| [1]https://web.archive.org/web/20210609082852/https://www.nyt
| im...
| fredoralive wrote:
| Recently in Europe we had a kinda reverse - Suzuki removed the
| rear seats of the Jimny, a small 4x4, to reclassify it as a
| commercial vehicle to qualify for laxer CO2 emission standards.
| bitL wrote:
| Yeah, but they also really dumbed down the interior and
| lowered roof quality, while selling it for the same MSRP as
| the previous model (still + 10k from the actual sellers,
| bringing it to Toyota RAV4 territory price-wise).
| fredoralive wrote:
| Ouch, I think I'd seen something about them swapping to
| steel wheels instead of alloys, but I didn't realise it had
| generally been downgraded. And that price...
|
| Pity, as I kinda like the Jimny even if it makes no sense
| at all for me to own one.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > This reminds me of the Subaru BRAT in the early '80s. There
| was a 25% tarrif on imported pickups.
|
| Isn't that tariff still in place?
|
| It seems like they're smarter with the enforcement, so tricks
| like that don't work anymore:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax
|
| > The U.S. Customs Service changed vehicle classifications in
| 1989, automatically relegating two-door SUVs to light-truck
| status.[4] Toyota Motor Corp., Nissan Motor Co., Suzuki
| (through a joint venture with GM), and Honda Motor Co.
| eventually built assembly plants in the U.S. and Canada in
| response to the tariff.[1]...
|
| > Customs and Border Protection (CBP) ruled in 2013 that
| Transit Connects imported by Ford as passenger wagons and later
| converted into cargo vans should be subject to the 25% duty
| rate applicable to vans and not to the 2.5% rate applicable to
| passenger vehicles. Ford sued and finally, in 2020, the Supreme
| Court declined to hear the case which confirmed the position of
| CBP.[22]
| fooey wrote:
| A seafood company in Canada has a 100 foot section of train
| track, where they load trucks on and right back off, in an
| attempt to get around the Jones Act requirement that goods
| shipped between 2 points in the US must use US flagged vessels
|
| https://www.adn.com/business-economy/2021/09/15/feds-accuse-...
| mmcgaha wrote:
| We need something like the senate filibuster debate rule for
| taxes. Basically just state that there is this thing I can do
| to skirt the tax system so I declare a tax evasion without
| having to actually make people do stupid stuff.
| [deleted]
| stenl wrote:
| Or maybe we need the opposite: basically just state that
| you did this stupid stuff only to avoid the tax, so you
| should pay the tax anyway.
| version_five wrote:
| The solution to a bad or poorly written law is not to
| leave it on the books and have some "oh well we actually
| meant" thing that means it can be arbitrarily applied in
| a different way than written.
|
| Courts can interpret laws if the interpretation is the
| problem. If there is just a stupid loophole, then either
| the law itself makes no sense (as seems to apply to this
| Jones Act) or it needs to be reworded to align with its
| intent.
|
| This reminds me of all the california electricity
| deregulation games where Enron et al moved power out of
| state and back, or had plants go down strategically for
| maintenance in order to gain the system. The correct
| solution is not to say "play nice, you know what we
| meant". It's to have a consistent and enforceable set of
| rules that dont admit gaming.
| ggrrhh_ta wrote:
| Laws, at least in many European countries, are prefaced
| with a preamble, introduction, or Vorwort, that explains
| a bit of the history, the motivation, the underlying
| principles, the philosophy, the practicality, and the
| guidelines for interpretation of that law. The words, as
| written, are not to be taken, in any case literally.
| Moreover, a literal interpretation contradicting the
| spirit of the law is unlawful, and that is one of the
| principles of many legal systems. Using a loophole that
| contradicts the law is unlawful; imagine the law says you
| have the right to water your plants in your balcony;
| however, you only do it when the neighbor below is
| sitting at their balcony with the intention to bother
| them: you are abusing the law and committing an unlawful
| act.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| A law system like that requires wisdom. America has a lot
| of smart but almost no wisdom, so it would be chaos and
| anarchy if we suddenly switched to such a system.
| [deleted]
| gamblor956 wrote:
| You're being downvoted but that's actually how tax works
| in the U.S. and Europe.
|
| Tax is one of the few areas of law where activities can
| be declared illegal and subject to punitive sanction
| after the fact. For example, the fictive loss tax shelter
| scheme that was popular 15 years ago. Fictive losses were
| technically legal at the time the scheme began (in the
| sense that they were legal within the letter of the law
| but violated the intent of the law), and weren't
| explicitly stated to be illegal until years later
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenkens_%26_Gilchrist).
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| That defeats the purpose of the law. If they're flagrantly
| violating the spirit and intent by _barely_ passing the
| technical requirement, then the law should either A) be
| removed or B) retooled to address the loophole.
|
| We should never encourage ignoring certain laws or it
| undermines the whole system. It's why I don't support
| states legalizing weed under the federal government's
| nose/while they turn a blind eye. Sure, we like it for
| weed, but what happens when a super conservative state does
| something less popular like, say, functionally bans gay
| marriage and goes, "well you aren't enforcing drug laws,
| why should they get a pass but not us?"
|
| I'm sure there are better examples but hopefully I'm
| getting my point across. Exceptions = weakening of the
| established structure. I don't know about you, but I like
| that "the law is king" in the US. Mostly because we can
| change them.
| sneak wrote:
| > _That defeats the purpose of the law. If they're
| flagrantly violating the spirit and intent by barely
| passing the technical requirement, then the law should
| either A) be removed or B) retooled to address the
| loophole._
|
| Yes, indeed. It completely defeats the purpose of the
| law, which is why the suggestion is akin to your A
| solution (that it should be invalidated/removed).
|
| The law doesn't encode "purpose" or "spirit", the law
| only exists as written. When applying the law, and tax
| law especially, it's counterproductive to speculate as to
| "spirit" or "purpose", and best to focus just on _what
| the law actually is_ , because that's the only part that
| really counts as "democratic". Intentions and ideals
| weren't voted on, the actual literal text of the law was.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| > but what happens when a super conservative state does
| something less popular
|
| Or like abortion. The new abortion rules in conservative
| states are betting they can sway the federal gov if a
| lawsuit arises, but its based on the assumption they'll
| get to ignore the gov.
| spiffytech wrote:
| > what happens when a super conservative state does
| something less popular like, say, functionally bans gay
| marriage
|
| That happened in North Carolina (albeit before weed
| legalization had gained momentum):
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Carolina_Amendment_1
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| Luckily it was shot down, but yeah, my concern is the
| serious precedent weed legalization is setting. I like
| the outcome, I am scared of the precedent.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Ford was doing this a couple of years ago with their small
| van... the Transit Connect (iirc).
|
| They would import from Europe with seats, but remove the seats
| at the port and ship them right back.
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| Almost. The back seats were actually shredded.
| ninly wrote:
| Its reputation is eternal:
| http://achewood.com/index.php?date=12012003
| Lammy wrote:
| Should have stuck with the 1978 Volvo 244GLE
| http://achewood.com/?date=05102005
| magicalhippo wrote:
| Here in Norway we have the infamous "E6 ham". We have an import
| tax on dry-cured ham[1], but not unprocessed meat.
|
| Someone figured out it was cheaper then to import unprocessed
| meat from Spain to Norway, turn the truck around as soon as
| they were customs cleared and drive the 3000 km or so back to
| Spain for curing.
|
| Once cured they'd re-import the processed meat, which now has a
| different tariff due to being "Norwegian" ham processed abroad,
| while still being proper Spanish dry-cured ham.
|
| So a ~6000 km (3700 miles) detour to save on import taxes,
| yay...
|
| The name comes from the E6 route[2] the trucks drive through
| Sweden and into Norway.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ham#Dry-cured
|
| [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_route_E6
| Hello71 wrote:
| source? upon searching for "e6 ham", "norway ham tax", "e6
| skinke" etc found only this post.
| danielfoster wrote:
| Not everything is on the Internet.
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| Heathen!
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| I guess it's not that "infamous," then, is it?
| Cederfjard wrote:
| Quick search found this, from the Norwegian Broadcasting
| Corporation in 2014: https://www.nrk.no/norge/ellevill-
| skinkereise-1.11613122
|
| Translated: https://www-nrk-
| no.translate.goog/norge/ellevill-skinkereise...
| kgc wrote:
| Maybe they could just send an NFT of the meat to save on
| transport costs.
| hedgehog wrote:
| This kind of thing is apparently pretty common. The two that I
| know of are shoes -> slippers by adding fabric to the bottom
| and European manufactured vans being imported to the US as
| passenger vehicles and then converted to cargo after arrival.
| genezeta wrote:
| > _The CPC472 itself was sold for how many? pesetas (how many?
| euros)_
|
| As far as I can remember, the CPC472 was sold for the same price
| as the CPC464. It was never marketed as an actual improvement
| over the 464 and competition in the market was hard enough to be
| able to justify a higher price without a clear justification.
|
| Then again my memory is not that good now so anyone feel free to
| correct me.
| xtracto wrote:
| This was a pretty interesting read. I had to stretch my Google-fu
| muscles, but I was able to find the original Spanish import tax
| law from 1985:
|
| https://www.boe.es/diario_boe/txt.php?id=BOE-A-1985-18847 (Google
| translation below)
|
| From here: https://www.zonadepruebas.com/viewtopic.php?t=1830
|
| It's funny that they explicitly set the number of RAM KB for
| machines. I wonder what was the logic?
|
| ---
|
| BY ROYAL DECREE 1215/1985, OF JULY 17, A MODIFICATION HAS BEEN
| INTRODUCED IN THE TARIFF DUTY ASSIGNED TO SUBHEADING 84.53.B.II
| OF THE CUSTOMS TARIFF, CONSISTING OF SETTING A SPECIFIC MINIMUM
| DUTY OF 15,000 PESETAS PER UNIT.
|
| THE BROAD CONTENT OF THE REFERENCE SUBHEADING, IN WHICH DIFFERENT
| ELECTRONIC COMPUTER PRODUCTS ARE CLASSIFIED AND TAKING INTO
| ACCOUNT THAT THE MENTIONED SPECIFIC MINIMUM SHOULD ONLY AFFECT A
| CERTAIN TYPE OF AUTOMATIC MACHINES FOR THE PROCESSING OF
| INFORMATION, KNOWN SECTORALLY UNDER THE THE NAME OF
| "MICROCOMPUTERS", MAKES IT ADVISABLE TO COMPLEMENT THE CITED
| MODIFICATION WITH THE TIMELY CLARIFICATION LIMITING ITS SCOPE.
|
| BY VIRTUE OF IT, AND IN USE OF THE POWER RECOGNIZED TO THE
| GOVERNMENT BY ARTICLE 6 SECTION 4 OF THE CURRENT TARIFF LAW, AT
| THE PROPOSAL OF THE MINISTER OF ECONOMY AND FINANCE, AND PRIOR
| APPROVAL BY THE COUNCIL OF MINISTERS OF AUGUST 28, 1985, I HAVE :
|
| ARTICLE 1. FOR THE PURPOSES OF THE APPLICATION OF THE SPECIFIC
| MINIMUM RIGHT OF 15,000 PESETAS PER UNIT INTRODUCED IN SUBHEADING
| 84.53.B.II OF THE CUSTOMS TARIFF BY ROYAL DECREE 1215/1985, OF
| JULY 17, IT SHALL BE UNDERSTOOD BY TAXABLE UNIT AFFECTED BY THE
| CITED RIGHT THOSE AUTOMATIC MACHINES FOR PROCESSING INFORMATION
| THAT CONSIST OF INTEGRATED OPERATIONAL UNITS, WHICH COMPRISE IN A
| SINGLE ENVELOPE AT LEAST ONE CENTRAL UNIT AND ONE INPUT UNIT,
| WHETHER OR NOT PROVIDED WITH AN OUTPUT UNIT, AND WHICH HAVE RAM
| MEMORY WITH CAPACITY NOT EXCEEDING 64 KB.
|
| ART. 2. WITHOUT PREJUDICE TO ITS EFFECTIVENESS FROM JULY 25, DATE
| OF PUBLICATION OF ROYAL DECREE 1215/1985, THIS ROYAL DECREE WILL
| ENTER INTO FORCE THE SAME DAY OF ITS PUBLICATION IN THE "OFFICIAL
| STATE GAZETTE".
|
| GIVEN IN PALMA DE MALLORCA ON AUGUST 28, 1985.-JUAN CARLOS R.-THE
| MINISTER OF ECONOMY AND TREASURY, CARLOS SOLCHAGA CATALAN.
| PaywallBuster wrote:
| https://archive.is/pjTzl
___________________________________________________________________
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