Amazon is using creative tactics that enable it to avoid import taxes on almost everything it sells by making every item sold a single sale that is under $800, according to trade expert and former Trump advisor Curtis Ellis.
Curtis Ellis, a former Trump trade advisor, explains the details of this tactic below:
Amazon Importing Almost Everything Duty-Free
The U.S. government, U.S. Customs, imposes a tax on imports, a tariff or a duty. However, there is an exception. If you go to Scottland and buy a sweater that is less than $800 you can bring it back into the country duty-free. Just put it in your suitcase or have it shipped back and you don’t pay anything. Amazon uses this loophole to import virtually everything worth less than $800 duty-free.
This Amazon Tactic is Helping China Avoid Tariffs
They will buy 100,000 sweaters from Scottland, Ireland, or probably China and park them in a warehouse in Tijuana, Mexico. Then when people press purchase now to place their order they break up those 100,000 sweaters into one package, one package, one package and ship them into the country as if they were bought by one person on one day and Amazon had nothing to do with it. They bring it all in duty-free. China does not suffer the impact of tariffs on some imports to America thanks to Amazon.
Outdated Law Subsidizing Chinese Shipping
A couple of weeks ago President Trump announced that we are withdrawing from the International Postal Union. This is another example. We entered into this treaty ages ago and it subsidizes packages and shipping so that it is cheaper to send a package from Bejing to New York than it is to ship from Los Angeles to New York. We were giving China this break as if it’s a developing country like Haiti or something. It’s now like the second largest economy in the world and they’re still getting that same break.
These rules, called The De Minimis Exception, were written before there was an Internet and has never been updated. It’s just another example of how Washington just sleepwalks through everything.