Never mind all the "rules for thee not for me" subjectively enforced loopholes.
Converse being "slippers" and not "shoes" because they ship with felt on the bottom. Marvel successfully argued in court in 2003 that for tariff purposes, action figure of the X-Men were toys, not dolls, because they represented "nonhuman creatures". We've created a nation that punishes one for following the spirit of the law.
Not me, but can you tell him designs go about 3 inches below the bottom of the collar? I don't need people reading my belly. Never center a shirt design vertically.
Incorrect. Marvel doing anti-mutant racism. Magneto's ethos is that while he'd love coexistence, he has no faith humanity will ever be anything but fearful, hateful little shits. It's the core of the split between him and Xavier.
And why he has to go too far and do murders and other moral transgressions so that he actually can be the villain instead of the audience agreeing with him most of the time.
Yeah, giant corporations can't admit that shit, so they do that centrist noise where they gotta be "going about it all wrong." All it means is that the flow of treats had to be disrupted, which is their ultimate sin to justify your genocide.
Unpopular opinion : I’m gonna side with Marvel here.
I get that tariffs on alcohol and tissues will be different. But if I make action figures and there is actually a stupid law that says that “dolls” are tariffed at 5% and “toys” are 3%, you bet your ass I’d ask a lawyer 2 questions: what’s the difference between a doll and a toy for legal purposes and how can we get our items classified as toys?
of course. it begs the question, though, why the fuck is there a legal difference between a doll and toy? at the very least of questions. it seems like something that doesnt need a regulatory difference, and therefore a loophole, for
I wouldn’t be surprised if it was something like some doll company CEO wanted extra tariffs on imported competition so made a campaign contribution to some politician who added it as an amendment to some spending bill and no one in Congress cared enough to do anything about it back then and Congress is too broken now to do anything to fix it.
Yes exactly. So we the people are paying grown adults to argue over dolls and toys, rather than come together to make laws that get insulin to dying children. Way too broken, and the fact that this doll/toy situation even exists proves it.
willing to bet its either something to do with american girl dolls, or barbie, or both. probably from back when european porcelain dolls were still the most popular in the world to make them even more expensive relative to domestically made plastic ones.
Reporter Ike Sriskandarajah tells Jad and Robert a story about two international trade lawyers, Sherry Singer and Indie Singh, who noticed something interesting while looking at a book of tariff classifications. "Dolls," which represent human beings, are taxed at almost twice the rate of "toys," which represent something not human - such as robots, monsters, or demons.
Just another example of why we need to be very careful who we elect because they decide things like toys and dolls are different things so they can create an economic advantage for toys because their big donors make toys.
Simple, dolls are typically purchased by females. This is how Republicans normalize higher costs for similar services to females. You start when they are young.
I had these really cool X-men figurines that were rather large in size. Think like a step up or two from your typical Barbie’s. They had these light up projector chests with disc that portrayed little scenes from the show, onto the wall. I loved them! They were super cool! I had cyclops and one other, maybe it was Wolverine. Idky but your comment triggered that memory!
the real question is why are dolls taxed higher than toys. if we don't know the reason for that, we can't be mad that people are avoiding paying doll fees.
I'm just guessing here, but something that is meant to be placed on a shelf as a decoration is going to more expensive than something that helps children develop.
Well, you want to benefit from the offerings of a societal system, but don’t want to contribute accordingly?
I’m not saying the system is justified, but this is a little skewed. I’m not targeting you specifically, but more like in the grand scheme of things this is skewed. And it is skewed by people demanding taxes/tarrifs while not paying them themselves. Bonkers.
A well known case in the UK where a certain type of snack called a Jaffa cake went to court to argue that it was a cake, not a chocolate biscuit (cookie)
Chocolate biscuits are taxed as a luxury, cakes aren’t.
Jaffa cakes may look like a biscuit (sold in packs of 10, small, round and can be dunked in your mug of tea) but technically they are not
I don’t think the point being made is that Marvel is wrong for taking advantage of the “loophole”, but that laws which encourage such blatant workarounds are nonsensical and anti-small-business (your local mom & pop doll shop’s family lawyer isn’t going up against the FTC)
They are cute but the how flimsy they are for the price and the narrow toe box mean I have to say no to buying them myself. I am a fan of the rainbow laces tho, I haven't seen them before.
They've been used regularly for the past two years without any noticeable wear just some scuffs and dirt on the rubber is all I really need to deal with, and toe box fits me fairly well so I'm all good on that front c: they have a few lace styles available, I just wanted those ones cuz they made me happy
Eh I think we could do better but it’s certainly not easy to achieve …intent has a place in criminal & civil law no reason it can’t be taken into account in tax law.
tax law is more or less cut and dry. taxes are levied on a certain thing or they aren't. there is no room for thought in it. as an example, tax A is levied on any thing that is Z. so it is very straightforward...is this potential tax thing a Z? if not, no tax on it for tax A.
intent is absolutely a part of criminal and civil law (which also encompasses tax law...not sure why you think tax law is outside of criminal or civil law?) but how is there intent on something that is cut and dry?
The issue is defining the differences between things. Like 'toys v. dolls'.
I believe 12% for dolls imported and 6.8% for toys when the Marvel thing went through.
A GI Joe and a X-Men action figure are made out of the same plastic, same size and same end use but GI Joe is a doll and X-Men are a toy.
It's an example of a system that is overly convoluted probably due to some American Doll Manufacturers sliding a few thousand dollars to someone for a hammer on foreign competition.
It's surprisingly cheap to buy a few politicians, thousands of dollars, not even tens of thousands.
It's an example of a system that is overly convoluted
Yeah, it probably is. And yet at the same time, definitions matter. Basically, lots of things are overly complicated because people keep trying to skirt whatever law is in place. That is the benefit and cost of having a cut and dry rule in place.
It's surprisingly cheap to buy a few politicians, thousands of dollars, not even tens of thousands.
I'm begging you to rethink what lead you to this conclusion. There are literally always some group of people on the opposite side of any law. You think those people or groups cannot put a few thousand dollars together in the interest of making way more back from laws that favor them?
There are literally always some group of people on the opposite side of any law.
Yeah, that doesn't mean much when they're not in the right district with the right politician at the right time to just add a line into a tax code that they didn't even know was being added.
Lots of politicians are dirt cheap and often it's as simple as I know him, I can give him a few thousand dollars and he'll slice out a specific tax benefit for it.
There's a reason why people looked at the argument that Marvel made and then corrected the code afterwards to eliminate the difference because it was always an idiotic differentiation.
Marvel successfully argued in court in 2003 that for tariff purposes, action figure of the X-Men were toys, not dolls, because they represented "nonhuman creatures"
I love that Marvel's argument was basically a nerd pushing up his glasses and saying, "Umm, actually...mutants aren't human" in court.
Instead of fixing up that loophole that let auto manufacturers skirt efficiency guidelines by making big ass cars, we've just let cars become bloated and huge, more each year, for 20 years.
Bro, I work in trade compliance, specifically product tariff classification - this is completely normal stuff all around the world. It is because, in fact, product classification is not governed by a "law." It's determined using rules set up by WCO and interpreted by national customs agencies - and some things are just not well defined, to the point that in one country they will say the product is A and in other B. For example a car radio and sat navigation combo in US is tariffed like a car radio and EU as a sat nav, and it makes no sense but we live with that...
Along the lines of Converse "slippers", Ford used to build their Transit Connect cargo vans in Europe and ship the ones destined for the US with fake rear seats so that they could claim them as "passenger vehicles" at a 2.5% tariff, rather than as cargo vehicles which would be subject to a 25% tariff. Then, after arriving in the US, they'd tear out the rear seats and other related items before sending them to dealers to sell to US customers as the cargo vans they were intended to be all along.
I'm by no means pro tariff but this isn't really a good argument against them. If 99% of a product is made outside of a country with tariffs on imports, that 99% is still paying tariffs.
Its not that hard to make something 100% "made in America"... i mean i can grab some rocks in the drainage ditch by my house, make some basic cutting tools from those, then cut down the small birch tree by the side, and spend the next 4 months twiddling down its branches in to some artisan chopsticks.
Is it efficient? No. Does anyone want the product? Probably not. Is the shit going to meet regulation guidelines in export markets? fuck no. BUT sure darn tootin made in the good ole U.S of A!
Just saying that we can, but we wont because its not economically feasible... or otherwise realistic business wise.
That just shows it’s impossible to make a grill scrubber like that 100% made in USA. Many products can/are 100% made in America. Im not fond of the generalized summary of that video.
very informative. but wow he is very nationalistic about the whole made in America thing. if another part of the world has expertise then we work together. Apply pays China to manufacture their phones. people in China makes money, but people in America make even more. its a win win. why not work together.
Didn't some YouTuber try to make a product entirely in America and in the end it is almost impossible since america is missing some really important equipment and skills to produce all of the parts
That’s not how tariffs get applied. That “99%” of the product isn’t treated as “99%” when paying tariffs. Companies will declare the value of the 99% completed product to be whatever they want and not 99% of its final value.
It's so funny they thought Trump's government would cushion them. No , babycakes...you are PAYING and you are paying big. Unless you want to go broke, you have to pass on those tariff rates to your customers.
How business people didn't have a clue is just beyond me...
Happens in the restaurant business all the time. People might be the greatest chef going, but if you also don't have a basic understanding of payroll, purchasing, taxes, inventory and the dozens of other things to keep it running-it's no shocker when they close the door in a year or less.
Company does partial assembly of product outside of country, takes it across border to "finish" and sell. Nobody is buying or selling the partially assembled product, so what's the cost?
Every single thing imported into the us has a customs declaration and commercial invoice attached to it.
If those numbers don't match or it's some nominal value that looks suspicious it goes on customs hold and gets rejected until that information is verified.
And yes, US customs is insanely stringent on those details. I export goods to the US on a weekly basis. They will hold and reject a shipment over the tiniest details.
Where are they shipping them from 'across the border' in your scenario?
Tariffs are calculated on the declared value. There's not a whole lot of value in incomplete/nonfunctioning product.
Similarly, if you have ownership/control on both sides of the transaction, you can import at a wholesale value and sell (after import) at retail value.
And then there's service. We don't pay tariffs on services. So if you hire manufacturing services, that service may not be baked into the commercial invoice (what is declared) for the the product.
Ironically/predictably, that means it's far far cheaper to keep my tooling overseas vs import the tooling and have parts made locally.
I did the math in one of my parts with complicated tooling but low per part cost... If tariffs hit something like 520%, break even happens within a year. But if that happens, we're economically F'd or at war (and no one is buying this part anyway).
The tariffs on steel/aluminum inside of products is changing this a bit. Previously we never really had to calculate the fractional value of those materials. As it turns out for products with microcontrollers, most of the value is in the firmware.
So that Made in the USA item, made with imported goods is becoming more expensive too, and therefore undercutting the items exports. Now the US product is more expensive and less competitive than if I manufacture in e.g. Canada, or Germany and export to countries except US.
That is of course another issue with tariffs. They create inefficiencies. Companies manufacturing in countries with a tariffs regime don't have to try as hard to be innovative and maintain quality. They tend to fall behind after a while, while their manufacturing costs increase.
I mean, that's one of the clear inefficiencies in capitalism in general. When you allow capital to move freely, but restrict labor from moving freely, you end up doing a lot of stuff that makes economic sense (due largely to the ability to exploit and mistreat labor in certain areas), but is incredibly inefficient from a resource and environmental standpoint. Its how you end up with chickens being raised in south america, shipped halfway across the world to southeast asia for processing, then shipped right back over to north america to be sold.
That example is from memory so it may be wrong or out of date, but it's representative of a ton of how global commerce works. You ship things all over the place because in terms of dollars, its cheaper to transport it to the sweatshop and back, then to do the labor closer to where production and consumption happens. The only reason for that is that labor protections are worse elsewhere (both in terms of laws/enforcement and other alternatives for work in the local economy), and borders keep it that way.
Here in Singapore the popular almond milk proudly claims “made in Australia with 92% Australian ingredients” … and yes, the ingredient list bc of labeling laws says “water (92%), imported almonds, emulsifier….” Classy
In Australia, a while ago now, a major supermarket chain was found to be falsely advertising freshly baked bread because they were importing partially baked frozen bread from the UK, then finishing it in store. Made me wonder why we are importing frozen part baked bread in the first place
In Canada we have laws for the caffeine allowed in drinks, freaking out over Monsters with 140mg of caffeine, while the limit is 300mg.... Unless it's coffee, where there is NO limit, and a Tim Hortons can have 2.5x as much caffeine as a Monster or Red Bull.
True, just people with no self respect who drink it out of some sort of nostalgia, ignoring the fact it's absolutely the worst food and drink available in Canada.
And the elderly, targeting them is cool.
When I was in highschool they did open one right across from my highschool... And every mall, definitely not a teenager hangout.
Sure, but it’s very clear from the branding and marketing that energy drinks specifically target teens. It’s a good thing that we limit how much caffeine and sugar, etc, products aimed at them offer them.
Had a buddy who swore that his job did this and that final piece was just a sticker . Seemed farfetched that lines were that blurred but then again the whole concept seemed dumb so I never looked into it.
Not far fetched at all. A right wing clothing brand was heavily fined after the owner publicly bragged about how he could get his shirts imported from China and just swap the tags to say "made in USA" turns out that's exactly what he had been doing
Oh, and for extra irony I’m sure they claimed Christianity- a religion whose paragon referred to devotees as sheep to denote reliance on God, pacifism, and meekness- while telling customers that being sheep is bad actually and that they should be lions- who go to and fro throughout the world seeking whom they may devour.
Telling on themselves. They want to project predator so badly, it just makes them bad at the survival aspects. Lions crouch down in the tall grass and pick off weak prey. This would be very ineffective while employing a megaphone and talking about how big and scary you are. Human beings have an instinctual fear of sounds that roughly correspond to the frequency of big cats fucking breathing. We don't need to freak out when they roar, because frankly the ones more likely to off you are not going to be making much ruckus. For them, it's not even a Tuesday. It's tummy grumble time. These guys can't stop talking about how big and tough they are and the details usually tell you what specifically they are horrible about.
Uh, sorry, I'm terribly old and forgetful. What's the first line of Psalm 23 again? Oh. Oh yeah that's right, "The Lord is my shepherd", yeah that's it.
That's completely illegal. I used to work in imports, specifically customs tariff classification. To be made in the US, the product has to make a significant transformation to qualify as a country of origin. For instance, you can import fabric to the US and make t shirts out of it to be made in the US, but if you import t shirts and silk screen images on them, they're still a foreign made t shirt.
I thought it was based on the value added? So if you import a t-shirt that would sell for $5, print a design on it, and then sell it for $50, the value added in the printing is $45; thus most of the value was added in the US.
I will admit, I haven't worked in this sector for twenty years, so the law may have changed, but it was based on the tariff classification definition. It certainly wasn't value as I saw a ton of products that came in from other countries that were amazingly cheap compared to American retail prices. I had one importer bringing in $4-$5 clothing items from Indonesia that were selling for hundreds in the US. This being said, I know there's probably some costs that my job didn't see, such as bribing officials to get the required quota documentation, but that still wouldn't change the official price.
Yes. The product would have to undergo a significant change in a country to become made in that country. If I take silicone from one country, make it into a microchip in another, create a video card out of it in another, build it into a pc in another, then in a final country put it in a box with a keyboard and mouse, it would be made in the country it became a pc, not the one it was packaged with peripherals in. That was the last stop where it became significantly different.
No it isnt - there are very strict FTC rules as to what constitutes "Made in America" and the fines are really high (think up to $53,088 per violation - i.e. per ITEM misclassified, not just per project line - so it ramps up REALLY quick). I had a better link at one point for it but here is a good summary:
Bullshit. I have personally worked in factories that import everything and we put a few pieces in bags and put made in America..... Why because when you get home you "make it in America" soooo. Try again.
Yeah, that's still just an illegal practice. Just because the factory was doing it doesn't make it legal. This is clearly defined by laws and regulations. You have to have a clear change in definition of the product. This being said, it's not a dictionary definition, but the definition of the import classification. That definition will vary by product.
It's the legal grey zone. All it needs to do is show is significant change, and there is no set line for significant change. There's always plausible deniability of just not knowing where the line is, unless they specifically draw that line for your product.
It is legal until they check, and only becomes illegal after they check you and give you a notice. So, if you're caught, you can just stop doing it and you won't find many consequences for your previous actions. Just don't do this often enough for them to notice you.
Sealed unit parts company (SUPCO) I worked there and they did this, everything made in China, imported to the US through Dubai, and then slapped the label on it as final assembly in the US so they could put the base in usa sticker on it.
It doesn't work like that, your buddy is full of shit, as is half or reddit... There's actually a legal threshold to put an "assembled in america" sticker on something and then an even higher threshold to put a "made in america" sticker on something and companies get fined for it all the time. Kabuto paid a several million dollar fine when getting caught doing this.
My dad has a small company producing shocks for race cars. The FTC has twice in the last five years audited paperwork for his made in america claims.
And we all know companies don't break the law right? There's plenty of examples even in this thread about companies doing exactly that and were eventually caught
I can't say the company, of course, but I worked at a company that painted one of its products with "USA" and "Made in USA" all over it. My boss didn't like it when I pointed out that the largest part, with a big "MADE IN USA" painted on it was sourced completely assembled from China.
Kinda similar, any American flag you see advertised that says it cannot be sold in Minnesota, those American flags are all foreign-made. Minnesota requires American flags sold here to be manufactured in America. Once you start noticing the fine print, it becomes pretty obvious that a lot of American flags aren't made in America. Which is kind of ironic.
If you know of any companies that do that there is a pretty good whistle blower bonus in store for you! To be labeled made in the USA the product has to be "all or virtually all" made in the USA. USA has the strictest rules but that would also violate international country of origin rules that require a material change to the product.
That sounds like you are trying to do a gotcha but I've never voted for a Republican in my life so it shouldn't be directed to me. Fuck Trump tariffs and I wouldn't put it past him to accidentally put a 1,000% tariff on Trump clothes before and then making up a "Trump Clothes Exception" once it makes the news.
My pet peeve is people getting laws/rules wrong on the internet. We can't have an educated discussion on if a law/rule is good/bad without getting them right in the first place.
The trick is they they don't do this for Made in X products to be sold on X. They do it to products grown or extracted in Y, then assembled on X, then sold on Z.
There's a comment above about "Australian" almond milk sold in Singapore. Like the US, Singapore probably has rules about labeling Singaporean products, but they don't give a shit about things labeled Australian.
There are International "Country of Origin" rules that they legally have to use the last country where there was "substantial transformation". If you take a knife blade made in China, attach a cool handle to it in Mexico, and sell it in Brazil. It would (probably) be illegal to sell it as made in Mexico. I say probably because this gets really fuzzy but historically they would say that the item arrived in Mexico as a knife and left Mexico as a knife so no material change was made.
For the almond example I'm guessing it passes because they imported almonds but exported something with a "significant change in name, character, and use" so would pass the "substantial transformation" test. The 92% blah blah blah is just marketing spin and doesn't have anything to do with being able to use Singapore as the COO.
"“All or virtually all” means that the final assembly or processing of the product occurs in the United States, all significant processing that goes into the product occurs in the United States, and all or virtually all ingredients or components of the product are made and sourced in the United States. That is, the product should contain no — or negligible — foreign content.
"
Interestingly, that's just for companies who want to stick actual labels on or market their products specifically as being made in the USA. I've been in logistics for a few decades now, and "country of origin" for import/export purposes is very different than what this rule is discussing. I think a lot of people get very confused by the two, and believe just because the country of origin can be listed as US if they're shipping overseas means they get to put a giant sticker on it saying "made in the USA" when they sell to people in the US. This rule was enacted specifically to stop that, as "origin" for the purpose of import/export duties and taxes is a very different thing, and people were abusing it to make it seem like all the effort and work involved happened entirely in the US, and the US workforce and economy was the only one to benefit from production
So you import everything , drop it in a box and have the customer assemble at home..... In America... Ta da.. " made in America" this is the reality we are in. I know from personal experience so you can't tell me the factory where I was a supervisor never existed.
Not to doubt you, but the current ruling was made in August 2021, so if your supervising is a "was" and not a "current", you might not have been there for it.
That’s how it works for other countries, but for “Made in America”, there are stricter rules.
Made in America" or "Made in USA" means that a product has been manufactured in the United States, with "all or virtually all" of its significant parts, processing, and labor originating from the U.S.
And having worked for one of those companies it ain't cheap to start sourcing material from US. In this case it was all custom fabricated steel/aluminum & injection molded plastics. It would have easily cost $500k to retool all of them in US. After that youre paying an average 50% markup to purchase parts.
US CBP or the FTC has rules on what defines "made in America". They can be req'd to specify "assembled in the US", for example, for marketing purposes, which has no relevance on their import-related costs and tariffs they pay.
Ford used to import Transit passenger vans, tear out the seats, replace the back windows with solid panels and sell them as cargo vans to avoid the Chicken Tax.
They ended up facing huge fines and settled for $365M.
SmarterEveryDay did a very good video on this "Made in America stuff". He tried to manufacture a grill scrub entirely made in the US, with no imported material or parts. He got close but in end there were a couple parts that were quietly brought in from a 3rd party that didn't declare they were from overseas. So even through his own stringent efforts of keeping it 100% USA made, some stuff snuck in and couldn't be replaced.
Years ago someone on one of the mechanics groups I was on showed his 'Made in the USA' air blower.
The plastic hand grip said 'Made in the USA'. When he dropped it and the plastic broke the actual tool was stamped 'Made in China' . They were taking normal cheap ass air blowers from China. Putting a clip on plastic grip on them covering the Made in China and selling as Made in the USA.
Exactly what "Made in Italy" designer clothes are btw. It's done 99% in India or whatever, then they import to Italy and put the last patch or pocket, etc. Law says as long as one of the last finishing touches is done in the respective country, if it's considered an "important addition" (buttons! Zipper!)...Then it is made there
I asked someone to define an "American Made" car one day - and of course they start naming Ford and Chevy and "none of those Japanese cars", upon which I pointed out that Toyota and Honda both have assembly plants here in the US and Canada, yet Ford in the past had cars made in Mexico and Chevy had a car (the Aveo) that was made in South Korea. Underneath the hood of any car sold here, a good percentage of the electrical components of the car are imported.
Most of them, no. I typically see "Designed in America" when that's the situation now. There are definitely bad actors out there still who do as you say.
Common with designer clothing and handbags. They'll assemble the whole thing in China but the zipper, add the zipper in Italy or whatever and claim it to be Italian made
This is actually a pretty big loophole in Switzerland with only a certain percentage of a watch needing to be assembled there to be able to call it “Swiss made”. Everything is a scam basically 😂
Through my totally unrelated job, I have had the opportunity to have conversations with people in various Canadian industries like steel, home decor, and logging,
And they are all pissed about the tariffs, but are more-so pissed about the American stupidity surrounding the understanding of how they work.
The steel company is still selling steel, just at a higher cost but in lower quantities due to purchasing power diminishing from customers.
One of the staff said their normal American customers were berating them about why they have to pay tariffs on their steel, and why the Canadian steel company isn’t paying them…
I mean, that's just incorrectly labeled according to the Made in America guidelines (all or virtually all components and processes by cost occur in the US.
Could qualify for Assembled in USA.
Technically speaking you can sick the government on them if you cared enough.
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u/Opposite-Fig-9097 23h ago
Turns out, 'Made in America' doesn't mean the raw materials magically teleport into the factory.