Aligning with the concept of using tariffs to fund government operations, President Trump has announced his intention to create the External Revenue Service. It appears to be a collection and enforcement mechanism to gather income from tariffs, duties and other sources that will pay for access to the U.S. consumer market.
[SOURCE]
One of the issues the External Revenue Service will likely address is the de minimis loophole.
The de minimis loophole comes from back in the 1930s. The idea back then was, say you went on a vacation to Paris, you shouldn’t have to file customs paperwork or pay taxes if you decided to ship some little Eiffel Tower statues to your friends back home.
Congress in 2015 then raised the de minimis threshold from $200 to $800. However, the e-commerce world exploded, and Chinese companies began using the de minimis loophole to ship cheap goods (ex. Temu and Shein) into the USA direct to consumers without paying any customs duty.
It was reported last year that the U.S. was on track to receive a billion packages through the de minimis loophole that aren’t taxed and don’t have customs slips saying what they are. Making matters worse, illegal items are slipping through the cracks, including, knockoffs, unsafe items and even chemicals used to make fentanyl. The worst abuser that exploits this de minimis loophole is, by far, China.
President Trump can require a customs and duty declaration stating what is in every package and subsequently collect tariffs and duties.
Something tells me shutting down the de minimis issue is part of the background for this “ERS” announcement.
Transfer the 87,000 armed IRS agents to ERS.
…motivating them by saying that every Asian ship and its cargo is owned by a rich Republican.
Ooops. Sorry, Mitch!
Mitch McConnell’s wife is Elaine Chao. Sorry, not sorry!
And her family is in the shipping business! All very relevant.
🤙🏻
DOGE them
That would be my first choice also, but it that fails, move them onto the backs of foreigners.
You don’t need 87,000 govt employees for that. Fire most of them. Keep a few to collect the tariffs.
No. Keep maybe 1,000 and fire the rest. Repeal the Federal Income tax entirely. That would take the pot o’ gold away from Congress.
Ok. I’ll go with that number. Fine with me!
Doge them all
Abolish property tax. A mans home is his home!
That’s a state and local issue. Right?
Should be abolished, and Trump should encourage it.
Creating an ERS is brilliant. Sure fire way to get folks thinking – long term – about where the government gets money.
And, gets them to ask the simple question – why should I pay when the guy overseas can pay?
And, creates a competing revenue bureaucracy and constituency for collection.
And, cements MAGA (and traditional Republican) revenue model into federal government structure, against IRS (Democrat revenue model).
I’m calling this a win-win-win!
I thought it was brilliant also! I like how President Trump thinks out of the box. Greenland is another brilliant idea. will be interesting to see how that plays out. Our Dealmaker at his best!
Pres. Calvin Coolidge (Silent Cal) also created a special bureau during his term to deal with the federal budget after WW I. The Administration’s primary focus was on reducing the huge war debt, followed by cutting the high wartime tax rates. This was accompanied by an unceasing effort to make the governmental establishment operate efficiently, effectively, and economically. The newly created Bureau of the Budget, which fell under President Coolidge’s direct supervision, played a principal role in this process.
https://coolidgefoundation.org/presidency/coolidge-administration-accomplishments/
Thanks for this information. Will read you link info.
I suspect President Trump has already done the deal prior to announcing the “suggestion”
He’s worked it out in his head that’s for sure and Denmark will see the light!
“Transfer the 87,000 armed IRS agents to ERS.”
If they’re so excited about being armed then put them into the Army or Marine Corp. Let then guard the nation’s borders.
That’s a thought! Border patrol is my choice!! Hope they can swim…
Station in Africa while we’re still there.
Better, let them try to collect taxes from the natives…
Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, Home Depot etc can kiss their businesses goodbye! Virtually everything within their stores is made in China, or is the tax on imports only to be leveled on ordinary people?
The shut down should be by country of origin f or mail in.
Physical traveler’s de minimis should remain, otherwise Customs can be (is) a pain. In 1972 – 1983 when I traveled they were invasive and / or often rude but often wound up pranking themselves (snorted my Noxema when the tube popped and filled the doc kit looking like “powder”). If it was so bad or I could face them down on behavior or rights back then. Nowadays I would worry about citizen safety….
Ending this loophole is appropriate. However, as I told my kids long ago about accepting government benefits and grants that might be available, even if they are not good government, “ya gotta play the game on the playing field that exists, and it’s never a level one”. Meaning, take all the goodies you can get, because you’ll be paying for involuntary taxes the rest of your lives. The Administrative state is what it is, and one person can’t impact it one way or another. He just gets to pay and pay and pay.
Back on point. I benefit from this loophole on certain things I purchase from overseas. This includes a few things from Asia. It also includes BMW motorcycle parts and accessories from Europe. So, while ending the loophole is “America first”, i.e. basic good government, the problem I have is that my overall Federal tax load will never go down to compensate. Most Americans are going to think pretty much the same thing. Yeah, ending the loophole is good for America in the macro sense, but in the micro sense, the American taxpayer just gets screwed again, in yet another creative way.
If Trump goes this route, i.e. Tariff’s, etc., he’ll have to simultaneously address the taxpayer’s burden, while also cutting spending (and I mean, like 1/3 or more, with an axe), or he’ll lose support fast. It’s gonna be a tough lift. Between high inflation and a high tax burden (i.e. state, federal, local), American taxpayers as a whole are on life support.
RE “Yeah, ending the loophole is good for America in the macro sense, but in the micro sense, the American taxpayer just gets screwed again, in yet another creative way.”
—> The FASTER this drives USA Re-Industrialization, INCLUDING BMW moving motorcycle parts manufacturing HERE, the SHORTER the period we’ll be adding to our tax burden and the GREATER the gains in American Working-Class Jobs and Compensation.
Typical problem is the same part from the same manufacturer costs 1.5x or more when bought in the US as manufacturer can control distribution channel pricing, even if “fair trade” laws are removed.
Correct.
As Joe Biden stated “You will have to get used to lower wages”, and in turn American made goods become affordable.
A sort of visual of this in nature. There is a live youtube channel of a nature camera in Maine. There are about 5-6 long troughs feeding deer. The people have to fill it 2-3 times daily with food for the deer, buckets of apples, etc. The put multiple pounds in daily. It’s undoubtedly cute to watch, but if the people ever stop……..
I think it says they have been doing it for 10 years. Some of the older deer might remember how to forage naturally (but probably doubtful). The younger deer have probably never foraged naturally. They probably couldn’t not survive a week if it stopped.
The idea is totally understandable for an injured animal refuge, but generally healthy animals…..I don’t think so. And they are probably overeating anyway.
I know this is a round about way of describing what you talk about.
we love watching that! so good for the blood pressure and there are some magnificent bucks that come by!
Just found the vid.
It’s only for the winter months. Thank Goodness!
They go back to foraging naturally once the snow’s gone and plants are back.
I am hoping he will encourage taking that ax first to the intentionally misnamed “Inflation Reduction Act” which of course had absolutely nothing to do with reducing inflation but was in fact the opposite.
The funding of the Green Climate Scam.
Taxes in all their forms are the choke collars we all wear by law under penalties of fines or imprisonment. They impede economic growth while supplying a food source for a non productive, voracious, bloated government which is never satisfied with what is taken.
Funny isn’t it, that prior to the implementation of the Federal Income Tax that this country managed to grow and thrive without them.
Whatever President Trump can do to effect the loosening of those collars from around our necks to give us some much needed breathing room would be greatly appreciated. I write this one day after posting our property taxes to our local tax assessor-collector so I am in foul spirits (and there’s a topic for discussion for another day, a “wealth tax” by another name).
This kid gets it….I’d give him an A+ + +
Gonna mess up getting antibiotics and antiparasitacal meds from overseas. A minor thing but a good reminder to stock up ahead of time.
just mentioned that to hubby!
If President Milei of Argentina could do it with their citizens, I have a strong feeling it will work here too! Our most difficult task is dominating the political offices with Conservatives for a long time! The democrats of today are disgusting!
Interesting, as CBP published in the Federal Register today (14 Jan) a NPRM for the “de minimus” (ELVS) entry program starting the 60 day public comment period. A quick run-through it looks like it imposes administrative costs on express shippers (DHL/FedEx, etc) so the question is how that will be charged back to the consumer. Also not sure how this affects getting things via USPS (my experience buying from the UK is that using Royal Mail to USPS is the best approach).
Postage is already too expensive, so I guess people will quit buying Online, and a lot of small businesses will go bump. Ah well, Walmart wins again.
I agree. I hope he lessens the taxpayer burden somehow. I wish the income tax would go poof.
Guess I’ll be buying up some stuff I’ve been eyeing before this is implemented.
I have to ask the question…people on X are saying Trump is going to shutdown the IRS-I do not believe that for a NY minute, but creating another goliath will just grow this government leviathan more, not shrink it. So other countries will pay tarrifs etc…but do us peasants get our taxes cut? Does anyone know? Thank you.
His stated intention is certainly clear; to retain and makecpermanent his earlier tax cuts, and tobextend them further.
He has stated he wants our business tax rate to be one of the lowest in the World, and to futher lower personal income tax.
How much he csn coerce CONgress and Republicants who have campaigned firever on “lowering taxes and spending” while consistently incrrasing both will be the challenge.
With a 3 seat House majority, very little.
Need to go after those stolen seats…as long as they get away with it they will and they took it right up to the line so no one will bother looking.
The Epstein list could be an excellent motivation for CONgress to support the 47 agenda, yes? Ghislaine Maxwell is still around for some reason.
Lol!
There they come just a walkin down the street, singing Do Wa Pdiddy Pdiddy Do!
See Trump 45 tax cuts as a reference
See JFK tax cuts for historical reference.
I used to work for the IRS and I can tell that we will always need a tax collection agency as long as we are paying taxes to run the government. Someone has to collect the taxes and make sure taxpayers aren’t lying about their income. I’m curious to know how tariffs and customs duties are being collected right now. This may just be a strawman to boost domestic manufacturing, which I am all for.
“[…] we will always need a tax collection agency as long as we are paying taxes to run the government. Someone has to collect the taxes and make sure taxpayers aren’t lying about their income.”
Why do you or anybody take it for granted as a given that we need to “pay taxes to run the government”?
You understand that you and many have been indoctrinated into assuming this, right?
You understand this business about “mak[ing] sure taxpayers aren’t lying about their income” is a false canard, right?
The Constitution clearly states that no wages from labor (ie, pay for working) are taxable. Government revenues, as far as it goes, are limited to excise and import taxes (ie, “tarrifs” and “customs” duties), and from un-earned (ie, “passive”) income [for example, return on investments, income properties, etc.].
Now as you know at least as well as anybody, Unconstitutional “Federal income taxes” on wages (pay for working) range up to 37% currently, with “State income taxes” for most states 10% or more, plus local “property taxes” on one’s home that they live in, state and local “sales tax”, etc. A working person easily ends up having equal to or greater than 50% of their earned income from their labor extorted from them.
Let’s look at “unearned” or “passive” income:
So someone “earning” from dividends, “capital gains”, or other “passive” income, worst case pays a maximum of 20% on the fruits of others’ labors.
Consider this carefully and come to your own conclusions.
Read the 16th amendment to the Constitution. It certainly gives Congress the power to tax income.
One, reading with adequate comprehension, would note that I made neither reference to nor argument regarding the 16th amendment in any way, explicitly or implied. Reference to the [original] Constitution is not a reference to subsequent amendments, and is not a contradiction, as once again, no where was anything stated or implied either “for” or “against” issues or lack thereof regarding legality.
I stated a clear question for consideration and discussion:
“Why do you or anybody take it for granted as a given that we need to “pay taxes to run the government”?”, followed by several statements of fact regarding how much one pays on “earned income” vs. various “passive income”.
To clarify for the feeble-minded, my questions were regarding the rightness/wrongness of the issue(s).
Understanding the reality is a critical part of deciding if it’s just or not, and if unjust, considering proper solutions to unjust conditions.
For example:
Prohibition was formally introduced nationwide under the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified on January 16, 1919. Prohibition ended with the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment on December 5, 1933.
Those were 14 years when something legal was made illegal, until the nonsense was stopped, leaving us to deal with the negative outcomes to this day – but still, that shows that what was bent can be straightened.
Arguments publicized by those almost certainly deranged at best, or “controlled opposition” at worse leading to hopelessness in those more practical, and financial loss and prison terms for those more reckless are not what one needs to focus on.
One must examine the laws, particularly those made “for and by the rich”, and consider the viability of repeal, vs. legally exploiting those actual laws properly, to minimize one’s onerous burdens to the extortionate regime.
Arguing matters like ratification or not of some amendment or such, legally sound or not as those arguments may or may not be, can only end in misery if one is foolish enough to pursue “justice” in the unjust halls of injustice we are afflicted with.
Basically if you want to accept that we are in fact indentured servants, unless we can get the crooks to change it., then go right ahead and believe that in order for government to exist they need all our earned income.
Exactly.
@Nobody, You have too much in your brain man…LOL
Comes from living a long life well, friend, 🤣
What you reference is National Prohibition. State prohibition was ongoing long before and after. As far as the constitution, the requirement is to either apportion taxes (capitation or other direct tax) by state, or to make taxes uniform across the country (duties, excises, imposts).
What constitutes a “just” tax rate is extra-constitutional. And implying those who don’t accept your reasoning are “feeble-minded” or “foolish” seems to go against the commenting code here.
My comment referencing feeble-mindedness is not regarding “accepting” or “not accepting” my (or anyone else’s) reasoning.
It was specifically regarding intentionally, inadvertently or due to reasons of being cognitively challenged arguing about something I didn’t write or even imply.
You start off with a nit-picking excessively detailed explication regarding Prohibition, needlessly, because what I clearly wrote and explicitly mentioned was “Prohibition” as an example of something that most understand was detrimental in many ways, (like other legal “Constitutional Amendments” and regime “mandates”) that were repealed.
You then proceed to proclaim the extra-constitutionality of tax rates, when nothing I wrote has anything to do with that, nor did I say anything about what reasoning one accepts or not.
What part do you not understand or find demeaning to yourself or others about: “Consider this carefully and come to your own conclusions.“?
Grossly taking a sentence or two out of context then bending it to make a point that has nothing to do with the discussion, or anything I wrote, tends to lead one to the logical conclusion that the commenter(s) doing so are either doing it to derail a conversation intentionally, or are involved in matters that are beyond their capacity for reason.
Feeble-minded, foolish, sharp, smart, obese, slim, tall, short, ugly, beautiful, shallow, profound, ignorant, wise – those are all just examples of adjectives (descriptive words). A commenter may come along who will take any of those words and claim I was demeaning them (or praising them?), with or without proper context.
What one chooses to do with all this (or more correctly “feel” about it) says more about them then it does about me.
As always, the readers can consider this and come to their own conclusions.
THAT was a middle-of-the-night Christmas break scam! REPEAL IT, to start!
Your understanding is not supported by any courts. The USSC has ruled, going back to Hylton decision in 1796 that the taxing power of Congress is plenary. It has never been found unconstutional to tax wages, occupations, or employments. The 16th amendment did not change that. What the 16th did do, was overturn USSC decisions that income tax on rents and dividends was a direct tax that had to follow the “rule of apportionment”. Instead, the 16th declares that income taxes follow the “rule of uniformity”.
Prior to income taxes, during wartime that couldn’t be financed by duties alone, Congress would enact a “direct tax”. This would tax dwelling houses and slaves, then finally real property. The total tax was apportioned to each state per census less Indians not taxed and only counting 3/5ths of slaves. The tax on tangible property was fixed, so the state total was reached by varying the tax rate on real property in each state as needed. The US was divided into “assessment districts” with federal assessors required to prepare and post the assessments. These districts were overseen by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, eventually becoming the Bureau of Internal Revenue. In a massive gov’t reorganization during Eisenhower admin BIR became IRS.
Don’t forget there have always been other excise taxes; Pres Washington called out a militia army to enforce the tax on distilled spirits (Whiskey Rebellion).
Do you honestly feel represented by government?
See comments above, you’re arguing moot points that have nothing to do with my clearly written opinions.
If one, like you, for example, as it seems from your writing on the topic, feels that you are being served well by paying the exorbitant protection fees extorted (paid under duress of severe penalties to your property and person should you not do so) from you legally by your “democratic” regime, that’s your position, live your best life under that boot, rationalize your impotence any way that works for you, like the tired canards of beaten men, that were “doing their part”, etc.
No need for the entire Reader’s Digest history lesson about the history of increasingly onerous, burdensome regime privileges legalized over the decades, there’s no rational disputing that all that and more actually occurred, was ratified, legalized, and solidified in a wide variety of failed legal challenges in many varied jurisdictions, in front of many legal fora from the lowest court all the way to various appellate courts, ending in repeated failure in front of various supreme court configurations. There’s no disputing, or lack of proof that failing to abide by the regime’s legal regulations in this matter will end in prison and financial ruin.
And your last sentence about Washington (and other peripheral similar matters about that period and person), only lends more factual support to what I’m actually writing about.
Tariffs are the way we funded the government for over a hundred years.
What we don’t need is a huge, portly, grossly incompetent bureaucrat class, which is what we currently have in DC. Think about it: they serve virtually no purpose. They produce nothing.
All we basically need is a military to protect us and a judicial system to hear our complaints. No IRS, FBI, CIA, DEA, DOE, BLM, and a whole host of other useless departments.
The budget of the Dept. of Education is $286B. What do they spend all that money on??? We are broke! Let the States take care of their education requirements!
According to cynics, there are two purposes of the huge, grossly incompetent government bureaucracy, driving its cancerous growth:
1) For ambitious bureaucrats to add more scope to the departments under them, in order to accrue more power/budget and thereby continue climbing the hierarchy for even more, increasing their pay grade in the process.
(Relatively few bureaucrats do this, but it only takes a few to cause outsize impacts.)
2) For government as a whole to increase the number of people dependent on government (employees), which cements and expands government power over the people. Basically, a legal form of mass bribery and control.
These are some of the reasons the sovereign debt is in a runaway doom-loop past the point of no return.
The revenue from the proposed tariffs won’t stop it. The reshoring of industry driven by the tariffs is a move in the right direction, but too little too late. Tax cuts and raised debt ceiling will bring the collapse even sooner.
No, that’s not correct. While Tariffs were a primary source of revenue they were never the sole source of revenue.
Direct taxes were periodically enacted. When the direct tax was debated during the civil war, there were complaints that the direct tax (which was essentially a real property tax) was unfair to the farmer who might lack the cash flow to pay the tax. This was contrasted to the “joint-stock” property owner who was said to “carry his property in his vest pocket”. So an income tax was enacted to supplement the direct tax by reaching things like dividends.
The first USSC tax case, Hylton v. US involved an excise tax on carriages for hire. The first call up of the militia under the insurrection act was to enforce the excise tax on distilled spirits.
Splendid fellow!
Or better yet, homeschool!
That agency never did it’s job ……and are bias against certain income tax payers. When I have called over the years…9 out of 10 those that answer the phone do not know answers past basic filling out form., the 1040 that is.
It all depends on the value imported. If too high (IIRC $2500?) you have to hire a customs broker and go through a bonded warehouse. Less than that not so bad, but for example sometimes Fedex will slap on a $50 charge for customs handling. DHL has the worst reputation for importing from EU. If you can use USPS, that in my experience is the best. There’s some good shippers from China. I can get stuff faster than from the US mainland here in Hawaii. BTW I don’t feel sorry for any US distributor or retailer who can’t be bothered to figure out how to get stuff to Alaska, Hawaii, or Puerto Rico.
Maybe we shouldn’t be paying taxes on our income.
I have a friend who worked for the IRS – he said if you don’t like the situation talk to CONgress. I say that because they’re almost all a bunch of thieves. No way should we use tax dollars for most of the crap it’s spent on – ridiculous foreign endeavors, torturing animals in the name of science (check out [email protected] if you can stand what you’re about to see), a slush fund to congressional officials to payoff their victims, vacations to places that have NOTHING to do with the jurisdiction they’re responsible for…on and on and on and on.
Thieves and incompetents – that’s who runs DC. They throw the wrath of hell, using our money, against anyone who tries to disturb their con which is something we witnessed with Sarah Palin, and now Trump but there surely have been others who went more quietly.
Sorry, couldn’t delete that.
I, too, wish he would shut down the IRS, Cindy, but we probably shouldn’t hold our collective breath.
As to enlarging the govt with a new bureaucracy, perhaps there is at least one useless govt side hustle department that could be redefined? 🤞
If we went with the FairTax as recently proposed, wouldn’t the same entities that collect sales taxes already have the mechanism to collect the federal tax on goods. No need for the IRS.
No. First, not all states collect sales tax. Second, the basis for sales taxes differs in each state. You obviously need a federal entity of some sort to oversee state collections. The, even without individual/corporate income tax you have other taxes in the tax code such as fuel tax, communications tax, archery equipment tax, tire tax etc . Other taxes are administered by TTB and ATF.
After we have paid the US national debt of 36 trillion dollars (so of our kids and grandkids will not have to pay it), maybe we can go back to the original idea of government being paid for by trades and tariffs.
Why should we pay that debt, none of us except the crooks in Govt’ borrowed the money.
Amen! Why should elected officials get all that money for flipping burgers!
He has floated the idea of repealing the income tax and moving to a tariff and sales tax system. Not sure we need an IRS for that.
Terrific backdrop of insights, Sundance!
Amazon Haul is now advertising getting cheap goods shipped in two weeks. Items under$20.
Frankly, as a business model, TEMU is far more consumer friendly than Amazon.
Amazon is selling Temu products.
“The de minimis loophole comes from back in the 1930s. The idea back then was, say you went on a vacation to Paris, you shouldn’t have to file customs paperwork or pay taxes if you decided to ship some little Eiffel Tower statues to your friends back home.”
Sundance with a clever reference to the infamous 1951 Lavender Hill Mob…
A fine movie!
Oh boy, another department which will require its own set of overhead and benefits and offices. Don’t forget to order the pride posters for the cafeteria, June is only a few months away.
Yeah I’m not thrilled with the concept of getting more government than we already have
Yup…. This ought to be dealt with the way spending, OK… so the way spending is supposed to be dealt with. Wanna spend 10 dollars here ya’ gotta cut 10 dollars somewhere else. Wanna create a new department(or whatever you want to call it) then ya’ gotta cut one some where else – of equal, or greater, budget requirements.
.
It’s a cute name.
Trump can take some of the existing 100,000 people in the IRS and assign them to do this accounting.
.
From IRS and Customs.
Taxing those free-loaders who have been getting a tax-free ride sounds OK to me.
Then change the name of the IRS to just RS. It covers both. Done
Bravo. Great comment.
June is the Month of the Sacred Heart, and has been for MUCH longer than, “pride” for sin month!
It might also open up a foreign nexus and tax-collection rationale that future administrations would abuse to spy on, warrantless search and seize property from any American who has ever received a package from overseas.
“Gotta check if any undeclared imports or evasion of taxes happened” the bureaucrats would say as they kick in your door to ransack your entire house.
This might make some Americans begin to think about how badly we are getting fleeced.
The U.S. Customs Service was established on July 31, 1789. The Servce was tasked with collecting customs and other duties levied on foreign commerce. It was transferred from the Treasury Department to Homeland Security in 2003. The easiest was for President Trump to do what he wants to do would be to transfer Customs from DHS back to Treasury and establish a bureau of external taxation within Treasury.
Seems like the announcement might be part misdirect as well as intent to make the U.S. Customs Service great again.
Either way, they will need more resources to do the job effectively under the direction of the Department of the Treasury.
I wonder how DOGE fits in with all this? Did they identify more waste, fraud and abuse?
How would the establishment of an ERS be any different than the European Union’s Vat tax?
Very different. I’m in England with VAT. I ran a company making modems.
Our invoice included the product price and VAT. We were then able to reclaim the VAT that we had been charged on anything we bought in. Thus making our net VAT the tax on value (costs and profit) we had added. Whilst the full VAT our customer paid reflected all the value added in potentially many steps.
If we directly imported something ourselves that was liable for import duty (tariff) that duty was outside the VAT system so could not be reclaimed, we had to absorb it as part of the cost of the item.
Hope that was clear.
Personally, I would like to see the middle man removed from all sales, and the customer given the power to buy direct from the source. I would prefer to go to the farmers gate for my milk, and bypass Walmart and the extra charges for putting it into plastic, shipping it, refrigerator costs, and staff costs. Farmer at the gate milk for a $1
From what I see the purpose of administering a sales tax as a VAT tax is to reduce incentive for tax evasion by essentially breaking the tax up into pieces at each level of transaction. An attempt to impose a federal retail sales tax at a nominal 30% would have massive incentive to evade.
The IRS was initially called The Revenue Service!
The VAT is popular with politicians, for the very reason that the people should shun it: It’s capable of producing huge amounts of revenue while remaining virtually hidden from consumers.
When VAT rates are increased, it looks like another increment of inflation to the unaware consumer. Milton Friedman said it best: “That VAT is the most efficient way to raise revenue for the government. It is also the most effective way to increase the size of government.”
https://www.ontheissues.org/celeb/Milton_Friedman_Tax_Reform.htm
I like.
A classic rant, one of my favs, and exactly relevant to this topic:
Dylan Ratigan (rightfully) loses it on air (4:45)
1,538,665 views – Aug 9, 2011
I hope this is what is being addressed. I have dozens of friends who buy clothing and shoes through Temu at prices with which stores, even discount stores, have a hard time competing.
I am no longer ‘accumulating’ but rather, decluttering…with a wallet securely snapped shut.
That is a pretty substantial growth that
has been happening in a relatively short
period of time…😳
China is also exploits a loophole in international postage treaties using its status as a “developing country” to pay very low shipping and postage on small packages it ships into the US. The US Postal Service must subsidize most of the cost for China to ship in all their stuff.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/enriquedans/2018/10/19/donald-trump-says-its-time-china-started-paying-the-going-rate-for-mail-deliveries/
This is a great idea, and the timing of Trump’s announcement is brilliant. If I didn’t know better, one might wonder if P-47’s transition team hired writers from the Babylon Bee to write headliners for him!
The Biden Administration has already fired the first shot in this war, when it changed the rules for drop shippers.
Are we growing the government again?
“Are we growing the government again?”
If “we” refers to PDJT and this proposal, or any other for that matter, then obviously the answer is NO.
Hire new ERS employees.
It’s about time
Taxed or not why not allow custom slips with each package. I have a family member living in Thailand and if I want to send anything I must include a custom slip with the package.
A customs slip has to be included in any package sent to military personnel overseas also. Even if it’s just a box of Christmas cookies.
The de minimis loophole, as it were, exists in every country to some degree. The difference is that the threshold is really high for the USA. For the UK and EU it’s somewhere around 39 pounds and even less in the euro zone.
I also believe there is an exemption for shipping US made goods back to the USA. I wouldn’t mind keeping that one in place as the Chinese can’t avail themselves of it but I can still send my USA made guitars and amps from the 1950s/60s back to America for servicing. But I can live without that one too if it helps get things under control the the External Revenue Service.
$100 for personal, $200 for commercial, duty waived. Its called section 321. If I recall that means 19USC1321. This waiver, that used to be $5, does not include alcohol, quota visa textiles, and maybe some others. Usually even personal imports are allowed $200.
US goods being reimported are entered duty free as USGR (US Goods Returned). There is a tariff code for this. Thank Alexander Hamilton, it was his decision, to waive duty, which he sent out in a Treasury Circular about 1789.
Isn’t de minimus the basis for airport Duty Free shops?
Is this the beginning of the end of the Internal Raping US Service (IRS)?
I really hope so!
“The beginning of the end for the IRS?”
😍
Yes.
He’s been signalling this for a loooong time.
One that really got my attention was a Trump Truth from a few years ago which encouraged people to read a newly published book about the history of taxes in America.
Who wrote the books forward?
PDJT
So why can’t these tariffs be used to offset what we’re all forced to pay?
Taxation Is Theft
There should be a demand from We The People to reduce the amount we’re being robbed because there is money pouring in from alternative sources.
Our government needs to be starved down to size.
And a good portion of our money is just being used for grift and money laundering!
External Revenue Service. The first thing that comes to mind is the American Companies that offshored their manufacturing to use cheap labor and no environmental laws, that also keep their profits offshore until they can repatriate them with little or no tax consequences. The ERS needs to collect taxes from them regardless of where in the world they hold their profits. Oh yeah, their tax burden should be 4 times that of a domestic business.
I have no idea what the President-elect is talking about. Every time I have bought a leather bag from England, I personally paid the Import Duties as it’s stated on their site and in the Custom document. What does this statement mean? That the burden of import tax will be on the seller? If so, I guess they will raise the price of the item and, again, I will be the one to pay that. Let alone the expense of staffing newly created Office.
re:…I have no idea…guess ‘they’ will raise the price…
hmmm…
Or, there will be a USA incentive to produce more items in the USA (more jobs, more USA capabilities, which helps our national security)
(while using US made energy to fuel production…and reducing the cost of living in the USA)
I appreciate the sentiment behind your words and I’m with you . To a point. I confess I am very picky about my leather goods, especially bags and shoes. Please, don’t shoot me.:)
If your bag retail cost is under $800 and you paid some fee you were ripped off. But I have seen Fedex not account properly for express shipment and they bill you $50.
Now you made me think about it, I think you’re right. Without going into detail, I’ll just say it was bellow $800 and they automatically applied the Duty Tax and it was shipped by Royal Mail. To be fair to the company, the shipping speed is phenomenal, they fly it overnight, clears Custom quickly and within 3 days is in my home. Like you say, it’s entirely possible that they actually hide cost of shipping under that. Still, even knowing all this I’ll remain their faithful customer. Thank you for this info.
Hmm, maybe…as long as they also get rid of the IRS.
So, not much is manufactured here any more. Most goods are coming from overseas. Supposedly the trade policies will strengthen the U.S. dollar and weaken foreign dollars. But, how does that translate into purchasing goods without bringing manufacturing home first?
If that’s Trump’s plan, more power to him, but can he cut income taxes at home AT THE SAME TIME? Sounds very messy to me. Inflations is killing Middle America. $7 for a dozen eggs?
The egg prices are coming from Biden’s USDA having chicken growers slaughtering millions of chickens over a few “supposedly” having the avian flu
Deliberate sabotage. Look at what they are doing to Costco. Millions of dollars of butter recalled and thrown away because the label didn’t say it contains milk!
I saw that. If people don’t know where butter comes from, they don’t deserve to breathe!
From a farm!
Those Chinese shippers get a break from the USPS, too. It costs more for me to mail a package across my own state than it does for Temu to ship a package from China, across the ocean, and across North America. It’s disgusting how badly Americans are getting screwed on this. I hope Trump puts Temu and the like out of business.
I bought a gift that was one of those stuffed animals where a portion of the proceeds go to a charity. It cost less for the gift, that had to be manufactured, sent to the store, with a cut for the store owner and the charity, than it did for me to mail it abroad.
People trying to send things to service members tell me they get hit really hard by this.
I know PDJT was looking at this in his first term, I thought it had been fixed then but it wasn’t.
This country took away the affordable ‘shipping’ option as well. It was once possible, if you wanted to send gifts or whatever overseas, as long as you were flexible on when it arrived, you could have it go when there was enough of a boatload going the same way.
Now there is solely airmail.
I think they wanted to drive business to Amazon in the countries we were shipping to.
Amazon has been having an awful lot of counterfeit items.
I love it!
Godspeed, Mr. President –
looking forward to January 20, 2025 with gratitude and hope!
Typically tariffs were collected by the US Customs Service which was part of the Treasury Department. That was before Customs was moved to DHS. Under Mayorkas who knows what they were doing?
Hooray, more guvmint!
I think it would be a transfer of staff from DHS to Treasury. I don’t think any additional people will be hired.
For now, but what about the next time there’s a socialist in the White House?
Not only is China exploiting the tariff loop hole, they also enjoy subsidized USPS rates.
Plugging the de minimus loophole would be a worthy pursuit.
One of the Democrat legislators has tried but could not achieve traction. I’d love to see it happen.
I wonder if that will affect things like common prescription meds that people order online from Canada, India, Germany, etc. Most people want discretion with these type of items and its usually cheaper than US meds. We the People should be able to afford simple medications and if We can’t…. Otherwise, I love it!
Erm, where and when are we CUTTING the federal government?
DOGE is a new fed dept
External Revenue Service is a new fed dept
Yes, I’m glad he won, but I wish he would stop introducing NEW federal government depts.
DOGE is not a new Fed Dept. It is basically a Commission – and the people running it are not getting paid. They have a set end date of July 4th 2026.
As for the ERS, I suspect that it will be a carve out from Customs and from the IRS.
So gov’t is now expanded by DOGE and ERS?
I get the need. But it does undo somewhat other themes.
“So govt is now expanded?”
Kudos for asking a question rather than posting imagined answers.
So here’s a hopefully great news one word response plus an emoji…
nope 😘
Brilliant.
How does this affect Amazon, if it does at all?
Having an other taxing body concerns me. We love the sound of taxing the crap out of China, but how long til they turn their eye of Sauron on us.
I’m not looking favorably on more restrictions that entangle law abiding citizens into the taxed more category.
Our administrative state keeps growing.
“Pathetically weak trade agreements”
The rhetoric is kind of silly, to take NAFTA that was replaced with USMCA, this was negotiated by Trump
If its “pathetically weak” its pathetically weak because his administration made it?
Not many other parties to blame there.
To simplify Canada’s / Mexico’s role in USMCA – Canada pretty much just signed the final agreement that the US made with Mexico on the dotted line at that point as it was USMCA or no trade agreement.
The US pretty much already got everything they wanted and set the terms.
Its fine if US wants to now RE-re-negotiate agreements like USMCA but the rhetoric coming from some of the Trump admin is sort of silly in some cases.
If Trump wants to re-negotiate one he should be talking about TTIP but crickets on this so far that got shoved down the throat.
Wonder why.
Biden has already been re-negotiating USMCA. They are trying to rescind protections for USA companies.
https://oversight.house.gov/release/comer-palmer-investigate-the-biden-administrations-last-ditch-effort-to-strip-investor-protections-from-free-trade-agreements/
Forgetting that NAFTAS replacement, the USMCA agreement, which President Trumps Team negotiated, had to be approved by BOTH the Senate and House; a House controlled at the time by Nancy Pelosi, before it could take affect?
Trumps “rhetoric is kind of silly”
Perhaps its not PDJT’s words that are “kind of silly”.
Perhaps what’s actually ” kind of silly”, especially after everything that’s happened over the past 9 years, are projection reactions
to a new President Trump Truth which is being highlighted approvingly by this site’s creator and only content provider, Sundance?
Food for thought, or not?
😘 Hopefully the former rather than the latter.
Who saw that coming?
Anyone?
“Who saw that coming”.
The moves and destinations, yes.
The genius tier Trump marketting, no.
Tariff enforcement puts government attention onto the border, and increases border enforcement.
Great Day in America. Tax relief for the American worker and retirees!
No more departments. Change the direction of the IRS. We want smaller Fed not bigger fed!
“………..to gather income from tariffs, duties and other sources that will pay for access to the U.S. consumer market.”
Pay to play. That’s the way the world works.
In 2024 CBP collected almost $7 billion in customs duty. Based on my 30 years with US Customs/CBP, involved with trade enforcement, I say the figure should be about $9 billion. This is under our current comparatively low duty rates.
The reasons for the shortfall include misclassifications of imported merchandise according to the tariff schedule (accidental or purposeful), various duty evasion schemes, such as transshipment of goods, fraudulent invoices, and other methods I will not mention. Additionally, Customs moved rapidly away from issuing fraud penalties starting in the early 1990s; another pot of uncollected money due the Treasury that goes uncollected. When President Trump increases duty rates, expect a exponential increase in duty evasion schemes.
The HTSUSA (Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States Amended), is complex, but know that it has a “Column II”, which comprises the highest duty rates. Column II is reserved for countries we do not like, or to which we want to send a message. I expect President Trump to make effective use of Column II, or the threat of it.
Sadly, within CBP there are a substantial number of employees who actively resist or hobble trade enforcement and effective duty collection . I know this to a certainty because I fought these weasels for years.
btw, taxpayers pay for “account managers” who represent major importers against…Customs (DOGE do we need these?).
This is a broad topic, and I have merely touched on a couple of aspects, but I expect to see organized resistance against increases in duty rates, countervailing and anti-dumping duty, and serious trade enforcement in general.
I hope that President Trump will return Customs to the Treasury Department where it belongs.
An interesting, “Coincidence” Steve Bannon was interviewed today by Politico, and expressed his desire for the creation of this very agency.
cross posted at https://freedomaustralia.freeforums.net/thread/6603/president-introduces-external-revenue-service
Fun Fact: Essentially every under age college kid who wants a fake ID gets it from China. It is a rolling email you send your photo and a few weeks later a perfect, and I mean magnetic stripe encoded perfect, driver’s license arrives hidden a picture frame or t-shirt or whatever random item the creator includes.
Is he reassigning part of the bloated number of staff in the IRS to focus on this? We wouldn’t be increasing the size of government in that case.
With all the hype and claims about AI, then why does Government require ANY employees?
Because AI is clearly fallible. It’s a grift. OpenAI’s founder Sam Altman said we would achieve AGI (artificial general intelligence, which will be more intelligent than humans) when it’s able to make hundreds of billions of dollars. Clearly it being intelligent isn’t actually the goal. It’s cheap, bad labor. If, heaven forbid, we decide to start replacing people because it’s cheaper but not nearly as intelligent, society will decay even faster than it is now.
And plus you have redditors screaming for universal basic income as a remedy to AI taking jobs. That’s a no from me. There WILL be strings attached, there’s no way a government or corporation would give that out for free.
YES!!!!!!!!! More Please.