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Trump's global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court

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Re: Trump's global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court

#741

Post by Maken »

sarchertech wrote: post #700
skeletal88 wrote: post #684

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is because your congress and political system don't need coalition governments orvaby kind of agreements, winner takes it all. A true multy party system wpuld be mote flexible and less prone to catering to extremes on the left or right

A multiparty systems has some advantages. But it also has flaws and it wasn’t able to stop Brexit. And I don’t think a multiparty system would have been able to stop the rise of Trump all else being equal equal.

The UK Parliament was by all means a two-party system, with Labour in one side and the Tories in the other. If anything it has become more diverse post-Brexit. Compare that with the Bundestag, where no party has more than a quarter of the seats.

Re: Trump's global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court

#742

Post by freeone3000 »

ragazzina wrote: post #621
tracker1 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think GPs point was that Tariffs are legitimate as a practice and that some people have been led to believe that they shouldn't exist at all.

Can you make an example of a tariff from the last 100 years that definitely benefitted the US in a long-lasting way?

Auto tariffs have kept Detroit producing automobiles despite various other entrants, while still being low enough for foreign competition.

Re: Trump's global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court

#743

Post by agentifysh »

Doesn't seem like the market has priced the implication of this yet?

All in all, this seems like a major major blow to Trump. I'm more impressed that United State's laws are capable of gate keeping the president like this and despite people like Dalio dooming it up, it makes me more confident in America ironically.

Re: Trump's global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court

#744

Post by sowbug »

tim333 wrote: post #730
sowbug wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To the CPAs among us: will the refunded import taxes be treated as extra profit for all the importers who paid them? I could see an argument that they don't have a legal obligation to pass the refunds on to their customers, any more than my local grocery store owes me 5 cents for the gallon of milk I bought last year if the store discovers that their wholesaler had been mistakenly overcharging them.

I think the tax is basically on the profit made when you add up costs and expenses. Say: Before: Importer pays China $10 for widget, pays $2 duty, sells to shop for $12 - profit zero, tax on that zero. Now: Paid $10 for widget. Paid $2 duty, sold for $12, $2 refunded - profit $2, pays tax on the $2. At least that's the normal way of doing accounting. There can be odd exceptions and complications in local laws.

Yes, I think that's the starting point. Another part of my question was whether a CPA applying GAAP would recommend recognizing the $2 as other income, or else as a liability against a future claim from the customer who bought the widget and is now seeking a partial refund.

I did what passes for research these days and concluded that if the claim is "probable and estimable," then it could be recorded as a "contingent liability" rather than other income. Relevant facts would include whether the tariff refund included a pass-through refund mandate (unlikely with this administration), or whether class actions for refunds against merchants were pending (inevitable).

Re: Trump's global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court

#745

Post by agentifysh »

HaloZero wrote: post #150
megaman821 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like there are several ways to reinstate these tarrifs at the Executive level https://www.cato.org/blog/supreme-court-got-it-right-ieepa-d...

The important thing is that Trump can't do the tariffs beyond 15% on a whim anymore though. Like imposing tariffs on Canada because of an ad displayed in Toronto.

will it bring back the de minimis exemption for Canadian exporters? Have a friend who's ebay business has been destroyed.

Re: Trump's global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court

#746

Post by SmirkingRevenge »

tracker1 wrote: post #655
ragazzina wrote: post #621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you make an example of a tariff from the last 100 years that definitely benefitted the US in a long-lasting way?

How do you feel about allowing the import of goods from nations using slavery to create those goods? Would you be okay with a foreign nation undercutting domestic production as a strategy to destroy your industry to control a market? That's aside from my position that most taxes should be at a point of trade/exchange.

You can just ban imports from people who use sweatshops, or hash that out in trade agreements.

Because Trump is so fixated on tariffs, it's centered tariffs in too many conversations on these trade topics. People have developed a kind of tunnel vision here.

There are other kinds of policy levers besides tariffs for securing supply chains, promoting domestic manufacturers, or cutting out businesses that rely on slave labor from international trade. Most of them are cheaper and more effective than tariffs.

Re: Trump's global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court

#747

Post by rainsford »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #256
ssully wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that isn’t relevant at all. This Supreme Court is completely cooked. If the case was “can Trump dissolve New York as a state” you would still have 3 justices siding in his favor with some dog shit reasoning.

Read the opinions. Both are pretty reasonable. I think the dissent has a good point that a plain language interpretation of the term "regulate imports" would seem to include tariffs. The bigger issue I think is that that statute exists in the first place. "Emergency powers" that a president can grant himself just by "declaring an emergency" on any pretense with no checks or balances is a stupid idea.

Not a lawyer, but I found the majority opinion's position on "regulate" much more compelling than the dissent. In particular, the majority's argument that "regulate" is a pretty common function of the executive branch that in no other context implies the authority to tax (tariff), which is a pretty clear Article I power. The majority also convincingly argued that it seems unreasonable to interpret a law to broadly delegate Congressional power to the Executive branch without Congress making that intent explicit in the law. The dissent not only didn't make good counter arguments even read by themselves, but the majority opinion did a pretty good job refuting those arguments specifically.

Re: Trump's global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court

#748

Post by wolrah »

cortesoft wrote: post #676
layer8 wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For goods for which no domestic equivalent alternatives exist, why would the foreign suppliers lower their prices to compensate for the tariffs (which are paid by the importers to the government)? More generally, the cost of the tariffs will be split between foreign suppliers and local importers/consumers according to the competitiveness and availability of domestic suppliers, and according to market elasticity for t…

Well, they would likely have to lower their profit margin because the demand is reduced by the higher prices. Fewer purchasers will want to/be able to buy the item at the higher price. The supply and demand curve will find a new equilibrium, but it isn’t like the sellers are going to sell the exact same quantity of items with the price exactly increased by the tariff amount.

That assumes that demand is meaningfully elastic, that suppliers have room in their margins to absorb it, and that they're willing to. That is obviously not the case for a lot of things.

Products with inelastic or less elastic demand we can skip over because it's pretty self explanatory.

Products like the random cheap widgets a lot of us would buy from random Chinese sellers are often high volume low margin products with a lot of competition. Think about stuff like a USB->TTL serial board that's basically two connectors, one cloned chip, and a few supporting components on a single layer PCB. Hypothetically this is an ideal case for free market economics and these things should have already been basically as cheap as they can be at every step in the chain.

For less competitive items, particularly lower volume specialty items, a vendor may also decide that it's just not worth sacrificing profits in other markets by letting them know there's room to come down. A lot of the independent hardware designers I've been wanting to buy things from sell out every batch one way or another so they just don't care, demand exceeds supply even if demand from the US is reduced. Others have decided the volatility of the situation just isn't worth it with the risk of products getting delayed or additional charges added resulting in chargebacks and lost products and have simply stopped selling to the US altogether.

Re: Trump's global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court

#749

Post by rjrjrjrj »

k1ko wrote: post #636
rjrjrjrj wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dunno. More than half the country was either enthusiastically in favor of electing a convicted criminal pathological liar or too apathetic to do anything about it. How do you fix that?

Sounds like an enormous indictment of the Democrat party. Public views of their policies was so bad that the alternative you outlined was preferred.

Yes, America chose adjudicated rape, tax fraud, conspiracy theories, serial dishonesty, and a track record of being the worst President in living memory over Kamala’s “policies” of being non-white and a woman.

That’s the problem.

Re: Trump's global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court

#750

Post by tim333 »

sowbug wrote: post #744
tim333 wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the tax is basically on the profit made when you add up costs and expenses. Say: Before: Importer pays China $10 for widget, pays $2 duty, sells to shop for $12 - profit zero, tax on that zero. Now: Paid $10 for widget. Paid $2 duty, sold for $12, $2 refunded - profit $2, pays tax on the $2. At least that's the normal way of doing accounting. There can be odd exceptions and complications in local laws.

Yes, I think that's the starting point. Another part of my question was whether a CPA applying GAAP would recommend recognizing the $2 as other income, or else as a liability against a future claim from the customer who bought the widget and is now seeking a partial refund. I did what passes for research these days and concluded that if the claim is "probable and estimable," then it could be recorded as a "contingent…

I imagine the government will provide some sort of guidance for that kind of stuff?
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