Cautionary info about tariffs on stuff from China

@ItalianScallion Duty is always assessed and collected in the country of destination after the goods have arrived, in part because of the previously-rare possibility that the rate could have changed while the goods were in transit, and also because the shipper had no way to remit the duty to US Customs at the point of departure. (I am not aware of any nation that facilitates payment of import tariffs at the export departure point.)

A decade back, I bought a Nikkor zoom lens from an eBay seller in Japan. USPS collected the duty in the amount of a little over $20 from me at the time of delivery.

@ItalianScallion @werehatrack so an example would be US customs allows for wheels up clearance on air freight shipments. This means the entry can be submitted when the airplane has departed the origin airport. In most cases (barring a shipment was flagged for inspection or requires OGA release) the freight can be cleared and availabe for domestic transport before it arrives into the commerce of the US. For ocean freight this is also allowed and there are specific rules surrounding when the entry can be triggered, I cant quote the exact details though; its been too long since I oversaw brokerage.

I should add that importers do not pay their duty/tax bills when the entry is approved, at least most importers. Charges are due on the 10th business day after the entry is cleared so most importers hold their money and enjoy the float paying the fees electronically on 10th day, or the 9th if they are conservative. I’ve seen both.

Also, and just to clarify a bit, not every shipment has a duty levied against it. There are a number of duty free HTS numbers for MFN’s and chapter 98 exemptions that can be considered. Every shipment that requires a formal or informal entry is subject to MPF, which is billed as a % or a minimum fee, but this is not duty.

Filing a customs entry is a complex process and I find it interesting when folks try to boil it down. There is a reason less than 5% of people who sit for a brokerage license test pass.

Funny, not funny, I mean, back in the day, when paper entries were still submitted an entry could be rejected if you stapled your document packet in the wrong spot and the customs officer was in a bad mood, and Im not kidding. Where is the correct spot you ask, well that is one inch in and down down from the top left corner. And never, ever, ever send anything to them in red ink OMG. The lessons I learned in my first weeks

@ItalianScallion @tinamarie1974 Eh, the in-flight/on-water preprocessing wasn’t an option when I had to deal with that. Back in the '70s, I was privy to the nuts and bolts of incoming duty (and goods) payment; I worked as the purchasing agent for an importing warehouse. I remember the “you dare not have a single page out of place or a single form missing or unsigned” admonitions. Yeah, they were capable of being really picky on a bad day. (And there was another wrinkle we had to deal with; the goods had to be paid for in DM, not dollars, and we had learned that we got the best exchange rates back then from a couple of banks in St Louis. I doubt that this survived into the '90s. The duty got assessed on the basis of what Customs judged to be the value of the shipment, not what we ended up paying for it, and those two numbers didn’t always match - but weren’t wildly at odds either. The duty on car parts back then wasn’t egregious. Some bits had none.)

But that was all details that only traditionally applied to stuff in excess of a certain value. Small-parcel handling was waved through via de minimus precisely because it wasn’t worth Customs’ time to process all those fiddly amounts. More recently, somebody apparently decided that if the amount was high enough, it would become worthwhile to process a potential billion additional transactions at the same time that it made the goods unattractive to buy. This could only have seemed like a good thing to somebody who doesn’t actually need to deal with sourcing stuff that can’t be had (or is far too expensive) here.

I’m not one of those people.

@ItalianScallion @werehatrack the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 would beg to differ. It states that, “…Federal Reserve notes shall be obligations of the United States and shall be receivable by all national and member banks and Federal reserve banks and for all taxes, customs, and other public dues.”

My guess is that since it was 50 years ago you are possibly remembering an LC that was set up with the consignor, and since it was automobile parts, I would not doubt they were importing from DE??? Likely the LC stipulated that proof of payment for the goods had to be proven in DM before the original awb could be relased by the bank. At least when I was doing brokerage, this was a common situation.

Ive no idea when wheels up clearance became the norm and am not going to take the time to look it up. But it speaks to my point, it doesnt matter. We are discuasing current events that are affecting the US today and it is a very common practice now, and to my knowledge has been since at least the early 1990’s. What happened 50+ years ago when you were a purchasing agent who spoke to a broker, who may or may not have told you the ins and outs of how this process works is irrelevant.

I have been on calls with forwardees and brokers daily this entire week and they are befuddled. The currnet situation is a mess and they are trying to figure out exactly what these changes will mean for their day to day operation, when they think they have it figured out something else changes. Ive no idea if ACE can even keep up with these rapid fire changes.

IMO it is important that we are sharing relevant factual responses to the questions before us. From skimming that terrible political thread, everyone is frustrated with the armchair cowboys who provide conjecture with no substance and I am trying to avoid that and give this topic the gravity it deserves.

@tinamarie1974 Perhaps more relevant to this specific thread, we’re entirely in uncharted or obsolete-chart waters with respect to what used to be the untariffed and undutied de minimus shipments of probable immediate interest to the average Mehtizen. That order volume is probably plummeting. But for both the individual purchaser and the commercial importer, the uncertainty is infuriating. Nobody’s experience, recent or ancient, is much of a guide when nothing is certain outside of chaos.

@werehatrack I guess we will agree to disagree, because current knowledge of the laws and communication of current and valid information is important. It is so very important, especially in the current political climate.

At least for now, we still have the CFR’s that can be referenced and they are being followed to implement the changes being handed down.

De Minimus rules have been a topic of conversation for years and tweaks are made from time to time. I have seen chatter about making adjustment for a few years now to dial back the effects that Temu and others are having on our economy. The issue now is the shock value and rapid fire timing of changes. Whether the severity of these changes is a good thing or not, well thats another discussion for a thread where I dont participate.

And keep in mind, changes have occured on a semi-regular basis historically. The CFR’s, HTS book, etc are updated and we move on. That is nothing new. It is only because of the sensationalism of it all that it has made mainstream media and the average American is hearing about these things. I am guessing most folks have no idea about the number of changes that occured after 9/11. It was overwhelming. Sure you can Google it, but for those of us that lived through it, trust me it was insane, kinda like today just a different topic.

And to state my point another way. Lets say you were a mechanic in 1970, the BEST mechanic. You could fix any car that came into your shop. At some point you moved to another area of expertise and didnt keep up with the automotive advancemts that occured. Now, 50 years later you decide to come out of retirement and open an auto shop. The first car that comes in is a Tesla. Based upon your “ancient” experience will you be able to diagnose or fix the issue? Nope, but the mechanic who has a shop down the street who has been working in the industry and has kept up with the latest advancements, probably. Same thing in any industry.

@tinamarie1974 Actually, I was an ASE certified Master in 1979, I stopped wrenching professionally in 1990 but have kept abreast of things, and under ordinary circumstances, I would cheerfully rather work on a Tesla than a late-model Beamer. (Can you say “insanity-inducing?” Sure, I knew you could.)

Automotive tech is an additive tech, not one where everything you did last week suddenly became irrelevant because all the procedures changed at midnight EDT last night. It’s much more restful than dealing with slippery-shifting bureaucracies.

@werehatrack actually you talked about your afinity for fixing cars many, many times. So no suprise. Are you suprised that it is why I used it as the example.

That said, as per usual, you missed the point or got it and are shifting the focus.

Maybe create a new topic to wax nostolgic about car repair

@haydesigner Nope.

@haydesigner They get that far?