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Adding unusable RAM for tax reasons

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Re: Adding unusable RAM for tax reasons

#151

Post by quickthrower2 »

magicalhippo wrote: post #73
geocrasher wrote: post #5

This reminds me of the Subaru BRAT in the early '80s. There was a 25% tarrif on imported pickups. So Subaru added two plastic jump seats in the back of the BRAT, even making them face backwards. No seat belts as I recall just handles. They weren't even really intended to be used. They were just cheap plastic. But they served the purpose of making the vehicle a four-seater car instead of a pickup, with only a 2.5% tar…

Here in Norway we have the infamous "E6 ham". We have an import tax on dry-cured ham[1], but not unprocessed meat. Someone figured out it was cheaper then to import unprocessed meat from Spain to Norway, turn the truck around as soon as they were customs cleared and drive the 3000 km or so back to Spain for curing. Once cured they'd re-import the processed meat, which now has a different tariff due to being "Norwegia…

A lesson for anyone implementing metrics and incentives

Re: Adding unusable RAM for tax reasons

#152

Post by JohnBooty »

cgriswald wrote: post #142
babypuncher wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly I think our justice system should be less tolerant of "hacks" like this. They clearly violate the intent of the law, even if technically following it to the letter.

I prefer judges and lawyers interpret what the law says, not what they believe lawmakers meant to say. It is lawmakers responsibility to craft quality laws. Such hacks expose weaknesses in the laws as written. Edit: ... when successful.

Ideally: sure!

In reality: are you a software engineer? Or do you know one? Surely you (or they) have experienced how difficult it is to write code that manages even a small number of inputs? Even 10 different yes/no inputs give you 1,024 possibilities.

Now imagine writing laws to precisely cover an effectively infinite number of possibilities, many of which don't exist at the time the law is written, and expecting the laws to cover these new situations and variables with absolute certainty and unambiguity. And unlike software, you can't just push a commit to prod to fix the problems as they pop up. It's a really long process, because democracy.

It's not happening, no more than you'd be able to handle a piece of software that took some infinite and random number and variety of inputs and did something useful with them.

We should, as you say, write "quality" laws to the best of our ability but there will always been a sizable human element to the interpretation of law.

Re: Adding unusable RAM for tax reasons

#153

Post by beerandt »

fredoralive wrote: post #89
beerandt wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No- the norm is for things to be imported, then combined or modified and sold as a new product, without paying the import tax based on the new product. If import tax on a cpu is x, and motherboard is y, should you have to pay computer import tax z if you build and sell PCs? After all, what imported cpus and motherboards aren't destined to be assembled computers?

I was more talking about this particular case, where it seems it was judged that Ford didn't make a new product out of imported parts, but importing a finished vehicle as one thing, and selling it as another after minor modification. It is a more normal way around these sorts of tariffs to import a vehicle as a kit of parts (CKD / "Complete knocked down"), and perform some level of final assembly in the end country.…

If the difference in definition between two categories is minor, then a minor modification is all that should be required.

Either it meets the definition of the lower taxed category or it doesn't, at time of import.

Any other way of interpreting it gets into intent and degrees modification, or worse, applying import taxes after the fact for domestic modifications.

Reverse the scenario: is an imported pc taxed at z need to be taxed at x and y if the only purpose was to get the parts and sell the cpus and graphics cards a la carte? If x and y were cheaper than z, do you think the govt would refund the difference?

Re: Adding unusable RAM for tax reasons

#154

Post by secabeen »

nickff wrote: post #78
RC_ITR wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It also goes to show how corrupt the import tax system is.

I am not sure it is 'corrupt', though that may be a question of semantics. I didn't mean to disagree with you, just point out how rampant the issue was.

I don't think it's corrupt exactly, often these details are worked out in deals between the various countries or as retaliation for other unilateral increases. We lower your rate on rice to 6% if you lower our rate on chicken; if you raise your rate on our machine parts to 25%, we'll raise our rate on your cargo vans to 25%. Etc. It's part of the negotiations, and it often has nothing to do with the specifics of the items being tarriffed.

Re: Adding unusable RAM for tax reasons

#155

Post by cgriswald »

noizejoy wrote: post #148
cgriswald wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer judges and lawyers interpret what the law says, not what they believe lawmakers meant to say. It is lawmakers responsibility to craft quality laws. Such hacks expose weaknesses in the laws as written. Edit: ... when successful.

And I prefer to see judges and lawyers as safety valves for mitigating badly written legislation.

You've misunderstood if you think your idea is mutually exclusive with mine.

Re: Adding unusable RAM for tax reasons

#156

Post by cgriswald »

dataflow wrote: post #149
cgriswald wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer judges and lawyers interpret what the law says, not what they believe lawmakers meant to say. It is lawmakers responsibility to craft quality laws. Such hacks expose weaknesses in the laws as written. Edit: ... when successful.

> It is lawmakers responsibility to craft quality laws. Judging by how hard it is for programmers to write bug-free instructions for literal computers, I'm not sure your expectation of flawless legislation is something realistic for mere mortals.

This is not my expectation. Law, like code, can and has been patched and rewritten.

Re: Adding unusable RAM for tax reasons

#157

Post by JohnBooty »

notch656a wrote: post #134
mc32 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was pretty transparent that they did that to circumvent regulation. Imagine Coca-Cola getting clearance for importing coca leaves for flavoring but then instead sells it to a third party who processes it for something else.

Am I the only one that sees no problem with that? Why the hell should coca-cola be responsible for what someone else does with coca leaves?

I mean, we (ideally) pass laws to benefit society.

I'm not somebody who really loves rules and regulations and I'll be the first person to say that America's "war on drugs" has been an utter disaster in multiple ways.

But, generally speaking, flooding a country with cocaine is not what most of us would call beneficial to society.

If you don't think that we should have a society and/or laws, cool, that's another discussion. But if you accept the premise that we should have laws, controlling the flow of industrial quantities of coca leaves seems like the good kind of law.

I mean, I guess we could just let Coca-Cola import metric tons of coca leaves, sell them to whoever the fuck they want, and then just... prosecute the people who do bad things with them? I think we would find that orders of magnitude more work and orders of magnitude less effective. There would be a large cost to society, and nobody wins except Coca-Cola, really.

Re: Adding unusable RAM for tax reasons

#158

Post by dataflow »

cgriswald wrote: post #156
dataflow wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is lawmakers responsibility to craft quality laws. Judging by how hard it is for programmers to write bug-free instructions for literal computers, I'm not sure your expectation of flawless legislation is something realistic for mere mortals.

This is not my expectation. Law, like code, can and has been patched and rewritten.

Companies with literally thousands of people with billions of dollars to invest have a hard time making their products bug-free no matter how many times they patch and rewrite, and we're talking about dealing with computers here. Exactly how many years of rewrites are you willing to spend on each piece of legislation to make it bug-free? Is it even remotely realistic? or will your solution grind legislation to a halt?

Re: Adding unusable RAM for tax reasons

#159

Post by enobrev »

geocrasher wrote: post #5

This reminds me of the Subaru BRAT in the early '80s. There was a 25% tarrif on imported pickups. So Subaru added two plastic jump seats in the back of the BRAT, even making them face backwards. No seat belts as I recall just handles. They weren't even really intended to be used. They were just cheap plastic. But they served the purpose of making the vehicle a four-seater car instead of a pickup, with only a 2.5% tar…

I remember those! A family friend had one and he called them the "Oh Shit" handles! I had a blast riding back there for short trips. I think I was 12 or so. The 80s and early 90s were a very different time.

Re: Adding unusable RAM for tax reasons

#160

Post by tasha0663 »

SMAAART wrote: post #26

Tax is the reason why Converse sneakers have fuzzy bottoms https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-why-converse-sneakers-...

> Fortunately, the fuzzy bottom doesn't affect the performance of the shoe.

That's false. They slide all over the place on tile and polished floors. They're terrible. I've abandoned them for Vans. Maybe they've improved in recent years but they lost me long time ago.

I can hardly think of anything more ridiculously overpriced than some canvas, rubber, and eyelets for $60. Then they have the gall to add extra crap that wrecks the shoe to pinch a few more pennies.

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