bhollis
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 p.49 #7 · Official: Sony RX1R III Digital Camera announced! | |
Steve Spencer wrote:
Is it more like failing to declare income, or more like failing to pay sales tax when I hold a garage sale or my son sells lemonade from a lemonade stand in front of my house or my neighbor who has chickens sells two dozen eggs a week to friends.
My view is that tariffs yes are taxes, but they are taxes primarily on goods imported into the country for sale in large quantities. Just like sales tax, which is meant for businesses and not for individuals selling a few of their goods on the side, I think tariffs are not meant for the individual bringing back one or two items. They are meant for imports of large quantities.
How do we define large quantities? Well there will always be a gray area. Just like with sales tax. If I hold a garage sale twice a year and don't pay sales tax on the items I sell, I don't think I have to worry about getting in trouble. I really can't see the police going around to people's garage sales every weekend and checking to see if they are paying sales tax. On the other hand, if I start having a garage sale every Saturday and I start buying things just to sell at the garage sale and start to have regular customers at my weekly garage sale, I might expect law enforcement to show up and start treating my garage sale as what it has become a business.
Just like law enforcement could treat garage sales as a business but don't care enough to enforce the law, I think border agents are not going to care enough about the import or one or two items to carefully enforce the law. Such has it always been with taxes. I grew up on a farm in a rural farming community. Every farmer I knew sold some of their goods on the side. Nobody paid taxes on those goods that I know of. Often it was in barter without any clear valuation of what was traded. My dad regularly traded the chicken and beef that we raised for the pork that our neighbors raised. He traded the hay that we grew for the corn that our neighbors grew. Nobody declared that as income, yet of course it was and no taxes were paid on that. Some people sold their produce at the side of the road, again nobody paid taxes on that, but if you erected a produce stand and started selling large quantities of produce everybody would expect you to start paying taxes on that.
Everybody knew there was a line, but what exactly crossed the line wasn't clear. We grew an acre of sweet corn every year, which is way more than we could eat. People knew they could come to our place and pick sweet corn and leave money for it. Those sales were never recorded as income. When we sold the sweet corn in the local grocery store, however, that was recorded as income and taxes were paid both income and sales taxes. That was where my dad drew the line.
Each of us with tariffs will have to decide where we will draw the line. Some may always declare goods and pay the tariffs. That will be their choice. Others will be fine with importing a thing or two and not declare it. Others will import as much as they can and won't declare it. To be honest my own decision will be based on enforcement, much like it was in the community in which I grew up. Nobody enforced or even considered enforcing tax laws and sales tax collection when sales and bartering was on a small scale between individuals. When somebody opened a business, however, tax laws were enforced. If tariff enforcement works the same way, then I would probably act much like all the farmers in the rural community in which I grew up. I would pay tariffs, which really are a tax, when paying this tax was enforced, but I wouldn't where they aren't enforced....Show more →
Don't really want to continue belaboring this, but I will note that, effective on August 29, Trump has done away with the $800 de minimus exemption on import duties. Now, all purchases made abroad, no matter how small, will be subject to duties (i.e. tariffs). That should tell you something about where Trump is at on this issue. And where Trump goes, I fully expect customs enforcement will follow.
Now I'm done on this topic.
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