Should embrace Amazon’s attempt to itemize the tariff tax on products it sells to the public. It itemizes the sales tax. The public knows how much extra it has to pay the government in sales tax before it can have what it buys. We should also see an itemization of how much the tariff tax collects from us before it will let us have what we buy. That would be true transparency.
The Most Transparent Presidency In History
- Thread starter Ponca Dan
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Once again, Dan displays his ignorance in matters of business. Sales tax is imposed on the sale to the purchaser. Not so with tariffs, unless you’re buying directly from the foreign seller.
I was going to explain to you how a sales tax and a tariff tax require the consumer to pay more before he is allowed to buy the things he wants or needs when I realized anyone who graduated from college (even OU), law school and passed the bar exam couldn't possibly be so dense he couldn’t make the connection. You were trolling me! Good one, you got me!
Crawfishing. The tariff is not imposed on the sale to the consumer. If I import a container of blank T-shirts for my specialty products business, I have to pay the tariff. If I sell none of those T-shirts to customers, I’ve still paid the tariff. In refutation of your original attempted point (which you’ve now retreated from), the sales tax is imposed ONLY when I actually sell those shirts to customers. Your OP establishes that you were too dumb to realize this. You’re welcome, for the schooling you’ve just been given.
Oh, I get it now. I thought you were trolling me, that you could see that both the sales tax and the tariff tax necessarily raise the price to the consumer and it would be consistent to let the consumer see how much extra he is having to pay by each tax, not just the sales tax. But you weren’t trolling me, you do not see it would be consistent to show how much extra the consumer is getting dinged by the tariff tax. In your mind the tariff tax should remain hidden from view. That way the consumer will not be angry about the tariff tax being imposed, and can be persuaded it wasn’t another tax raising the price, the culprit is the greedy corporation. How very left wing progressive of you!
When you look at tariffs from the government/authoritarian point of view it is a brilliant strategy on how to siphon extra cash away from the general public without them knowing anything about it. Sure the public might be aware it’s been gouged by the tariff. But what goes unspoken is it now sees an increase in the sales tax it has to pay because it’s now paying sales tax on the new, post tariff price, a nice hidden double taxation on every sale of every imported product. When you scale that by millions of purchases every day that adds up to a pretty big pile of subtly stolen money.
You may have a point here Dan, with as poor as our education system has been, some in this country are not smart enough to figure out they are paying higher prices or why?
And now you’re reverting back to your original fallacy. The tariff is not imposed on the transaction, which is why it is not itemized on the receipt. If you want to show all the costs of the item sold, then why not also itemize costs of raw materials, labor, tooling, energy for the manufacturing and storage facility, transportation, depreciation of plant and equipment used, etc. etc. ?
The tariff is imposed on the buyer in the transaction and added to the cost when the consumer buys the finished product, just like the sales tax is added. Regarding your earlier comment about the tariff not costing the consumer if he doesn't buy the tshirt, the same is said about the sales tax, it doesn't cost the consumer either if he doesn't buy it. The point is the tariff is a cost forcefully added by the government, the cost of the raw materials is absent that force. The question before us in this thread is why would the government object to the seller showing the buyer what the product would cost without the tariff? We know why it objects: it doesn't want the consumer to think about why the product suddenly costs more.
Perfect! I love that idea! Show the consumer exactly how much *all* the government interference in the trade is costing him. I vote yes!
Nope. You missed the point again. The tariff is not imposed on the consumer transaction, unlike the sales tax. Hell, it probably can’t even be accurately determined on a unit basis.
No, I understand your point, I just think your point is pointless. Whatever the product is the tariff raises its price. It’s a tax that gets passed on to the final consumer, and it is not unreasonable for the seller to itemize it on the receipt. It is perfectly understandable why Trump and the tariff advocates do not want the public to be made aware of the exact difference in the pre-tariff price and the post-tariff price. That is part of transparency they don’t want.
Stephen Miller made a great point today, why doesn't Amazon list the price breakdown of what California taxes and regulations add to products sold in California?
I don't have a problem if a company wants to do something as long as they are consistent. What Amazon was reportedly considering was not consistent, it was political and they got called our for it.
I don't live in California, but I assume when a Californian buys something through Amazon the receipt he gets shows the cost of the product, the taxes and the total due. If that's the case Mr. Miller's point is moot. Secondly: so what if Amazon wanted to be "political," it's a privately owned company and can be political if it wants. At least that's how it should be in a free society. We are a free society, aren't we? You are free to call out any and all inconsistencies in their policies, and refuse to buy from them because of their inconsistencies. If there are enough customers like you that boycott Amazon for the sin of telling them how much extra they're having to pay for a product because of the tariffs, that is your prerogative as a free citizen. Right? There's no lipstick for this pig. It's Trump's screwup, he should own it. Admit his tariffs are going to make things more expensive (in truth he has admitted it and basically told us to suck it up), own it and don't bitch when businesses show the effects of his tariffs directly to the public.
Why would I call them? I don't buy from them and don't care whether they are consistent in their polices or not. You're the one who said inconsistencies trouble you. You call them. That's your argument, not mine. My argument is the Trump administration is being hypocritical in claiming the tariffs will usher in a new era of prosperity, but whine like little bitches when the details of the tariffs might be known. That's the opposite of transparency. And to this point in the thread you have said or done nothing to rebut it, just danced around the edges.
As is my right. Voters aren't the only ones that get to bitch. I'm proud to know I bitch with the best of them.
