Tariffs, aka taxes, in action - auto edition

[MasterAnimus]

Ordered a few parts from Japan the other day. FedEx delivered promptly, along with a bill for customs fee (going to the US govt) totaling 25% of the cost of the parts.

The price of the item didn't change - just that I now pay 25% of the item cost to the US government. How is this not an additional tax?

When we've had bad economy in the past, people would not buy as many new cars and maintain the cars they already have. With most auto parts made outside of the US, even maintaining a used car will get more expensive. With millions of parts made elsewhere, shifting manufacturing to the US is almost impossible, at least in the next decade.

Whichever side of the aisle you are on, hard to see why this won't hit pocketbooks of a common person. Curious if anyone supporting tariffs have changed their minds.

 

[HisArpy]

Ordered a few parts from Japan the other day. FedEx delivered promptly, along with a bill for customs fee (going to the US govt) totaling 25% of the cost of the parts.

The price of the item didn't change - just that I now pay 25% of the item cost to the US government. How is this not an additional tax?

When we've had bad economy in the past, people would not buy as many new cars and maintain the cars they already have. With most auto parts made outside of the US, even maintaining a used car will get more expensive. With millions of parts made elsewhere, shifting manufacturing to the US is almost impossible, at least in the next decade.

Whichever side of the aisle you are on, hard to see why this won't hit pocketbooks of a common person. Curious if anyone supporting tariffs have changed their minds.

In your world, is shipping also a "tax?"

 

[MasterAnimus]

In your world, is shipping also a "tax?"

I am not paying shipping to the US government.

 

[HisArpy]

I am not paying shipping to the US government.

In a way you are. The shipping company pays corporate taxes. The money to pay those taxes are a calculated part of the fees you pay the shipping company.

Basically, tariffs are an increased cost of shipping from certain countries. If you don't want to pay the increased shipping cost, buy American. Can't buy American? Sucks to be you.

 

[MasterAnimus]

In a way you are. The shipping company pays corporate taxes. The money to pay those taxes are a calculated part of the fees you pay the shipping company.

Basically, tariffs are an increased cost of shipping from certain countries. If you don't want to pay the increased shipping cost, buy American. Can't buy American? Sucks to be you.

What part of "customs fee going to the US government" don't you understand?

 

[MasterAnimus]

What part of "customs fee going to the US government" don't you understand?

Can't read? Sucks to be you as well.

 

[dmallord]

In your world, is shipping also a "tax?"

Short answer is no.

A long answer has some context for your loaded question. Because tariffs are taxes — just a specific kind.

"A tariff is essentially an import tax on goods coming into the country. It’s assessed by U.S. Customs, collected from the importer, and then deposited into the U.S. Treasury. That’s why the money ends up in the same place as income taxes, corporate taxes, and other federal revenues.

"Shipping charges, in contrast, are a private fee paid to the carrier (FedEx, UPS, USPS, etc.) to move the goods — no government tax involved there."

As a legal beagle, you should already know this. I hope you aren't engaged for tax purposes by your clients.

 

[HisArpy]

Can't read? Sucks to be you as well.

Dam skippy, quoting yourself and then adding a personal insult on top of it, while thinking you've come out ahead in the argument, has gotta be a new low point for you.

 

[Saint_Ann]

Don't want to pay consumer taxes? Don't consume.

 

[Biglibido99]

Don't want to pay consumer taxes? Don't consume.

Hope that works out for you, you poor fool

 

[JohnEngelman]

Ordered a few parts from Japan the other day. FedEx delivered promptly, along with a bill for customs fee (going to the US govt) totaling 25% of the cost of the parts.

The price of the item didn't change - just that I now pay 25% of the item cost to the US government. How is this not an additional tax?

When we've had bad economy in the past, people would not buy as many new cars and maintain the cars they already have. With most auto parts made outside of the US, even maintaining a used car will get more expensive. With millions of parts made elsewhere, shifting manufacturing to the US is almost impossible, at least in the next decade.

Whichever side of the aisle you are on, hard to see why this won't hit pocketbooks of a common person. Curious if anyone supporting tariffs have changed their minds.

What matters is that you needed to pay more to get your parts because of Donald Trump.

 

[Pad_Foot]

Yup!
We will all avoid inflation by just not consuming!!!
Whatever you call the new ADDED fee that pays for NO NEW SERVICE, it’s inflation

 

[Saint_Ann]

Hope that works out for you, you poor fool

Death and taxes, my friend, death and taxes.

 

[Biglibido99]

Well Drump has only given the MAGATs one so far but death is coming soon to those being kicked off medicaid & snap & whatever else

 

[RobDownSouth]

In a way you are. The shipping company pays corporate taxes. The money to pay those taxes are a calculated part of the fees you pay the shipping company.

Basically, tariffs are an increased cost of shipping from certain countries. If you don't want to pay the increased shipping cost, buy American. Can't buy American? Sucks to be you.

Foreign-flagged ships (roughly 98% of the global shipping trade, pay no US corporate taxes. Period.

They DO pay "port fees" which works out to about 2% of the cost of shipping.

Go be stupid someplace else.

 

[Saint_Ann]

Well Drump has only given the MAGATs one so far but death is coming soon to those being kicked off medicaid & snap & whatever else

You and your empathetic liberal brethern are welcome to pitch in and prevent that from happening.

 

[ll74]

You and your empathetic liberal brethern are welcome to pitch in and prevent that from happening.

Everyone always chips in. That is why medical costs will increase.

 

[Saint_Ann]

Everyone always chips in. That is why medical costs will increase.

If it really bothers him, he can do more. That was the point. Do you suppose he'll open up his checkbook?

 

[ll74]

If it really bothers him, he can do more. That was the point. Do you suppose he'll open up his checkbook?

If he ends up getting medical care, he will.

 

[dmallord]

Children…

This whole tantrum comes from Trump’s fantasy that tariffs will somehow drag foreign factories onto American soil and bring back some golden age of prosperity. Picture it: thousands of Americans hunched over looms, sewing machines, and cutting tables like it’s 1923. If he can’t even force inner-city residents into the fields to pick crops, how’s he going to compel them into tedious factory work? Every market has its niche — and nostalgia isn’t an economic plan.

Meanwhile, automation has been chewing up American jobs for decades, raising production costs and thinning the labor pool. The “uneducated” workers Trump likes to romanticize aren’t all lining up to cut pulpwood — especially since that’s now run by machines, too. Tariffs won’t change that. They just make you pay more and pretend it’s patriotic.

Remember when Trump slapped a 25% tariff on Canadian steel and aluminum — materials we cannot fully produce ourselves? The move drove up costs for U.S. manufacturers, from carmakers to beer can producers, and sent Canadian suppliers shopping for other buyers. If Canada locks in long-term deals with Europe or Asia, we’ll be left scrambling for imports we can’t mine or refine quickly, and prices here will spike even higher. Tariffs like that don’t protect us — they leave us paying more while others get the better deal.

 

[ChloeTzang]

The other side of this is that yes, tariffs on imports WILL push up costs and PERHAPS drive some manufacturing back to the USA. The issue there is to tool up, set up factories and develoop the supply chains necessary to support smething like the manufacture of car parts is a huge endeavour that will take years. The automobile industry is international and tightly interwoven - and the USA is isolating itself and going it's own way.

Fine and good, but this reverses decades of policy, and manufacturers may decide it makes sense to simply pass the tariffs on and wait it out rather than rework supply chains, retool and adjust - if they make huge changes and a successor simply goes back to the former status quo, where does that leave them? Hanging in the breeze. All that's going to happen for the rest of Trump's term is that tariffs will make their way thru to the consumer, prices and costs will skyrocket, and not much manufacturing will ever come back in the short term. Some companies may be able to adjust quickly but quite simply, we have eroded our industrial base and Trump's approach is taking a sledgehammer to somethimg that needs a lot more finesses.

Blanket tariffs at a country level are no solution and will simply damage the US economy. Canada's a prime example - our single biggest customer and our single biggest source of imports and they are adjusting and going elsewhere for both exports and imports. Trimp can impose all the tariffs on them he likes but we depend on Canaf for a multitude of raw materials that are critical to our economy - steel, aluminium, nickel, copper, electricity, potash. Tariffs do nothing to reduce that reliance - we simply cannot get potash from anywere else and there is no US source of supply. Tariffs on potash will have an enormous impact on US agriculture for no sane purpose. Watch farms start to go under over the next few months.

Car parts are just one example of manufactured items. Sure, they could be manufactured here but that will take years and there are so many many parts.....That is one intricate supply chain and you fuck with it at it's peril. The auto industry is going to be screwed here unless a few enterpreneurs get into custom part manufacturing fast. But then you need the design for the part, I guess.

Up until now, stockpiles inside the US have been hiding the impact but it's starting to be visible now and from here on in it's only going to get worse.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Remember when Trump slapped a 25% tariff on Canadian steel and aluminum — materials we cannot fully produce ourselves? The move drove up costs for U.S. manufacturers, from carmakers to beer can producers, and sent Canadian suppliers shopping for other buyers. If Canada locks in long-term deals with Europe or Asia, we’ll be left scrambling for imports we can’t mine or refine quickly, and prices here will spike even higher. Tariffs like that don’t protect us — they leave us paying more while others get the better deal.

Canada is already moving things like beer can manufacturing back into Canada - a cool billion dollars of business shifting out of the US and back into Canada and we STILL need their aluminium.

 

[BabyBoomer50s]

The price of the item didn't change - just that I now pay 25% of the item cost to the US government. How is this not an additional tax?

It IS an additional tax. Tariffs are a tax on imported goods.

 

[dmallord]

Death and taxes, my friend, death and taxes.

... we can control taxes.

 

[Saint_Ann]

... we can control taxes.

Pay them or don't pay them?