New tariff on insects for American collectors ?

[wollastoni]

Anyone knows if the new tariffs will apply on small parcels ? I heard it's the case for Chinese parcels.
I mean if an American collectors buy some leps on eBay from a German seller, will eBay automatically add +20% tariff on it ?
With import permit, parcel inspection fee and now additional tariff, US collectors will have no more access to European and Asian sellers' material.

PS : let's not make a political argument here. I am just asking for facts.

[Chuck]

There are currently, and have been, tariffs on all sorts of goods. These are detailed (including tariff rate) in the Harmonization Tariff Code (the US version of an international agreement and format) found here https://hts.usitc.gov/

Amazingly, it does look like it's updated to reflect recent tariffs. It looks like there is still no tariff on dead bugs in general; I'd have to dig deeper if there is for some things like dead honeybees. Given that it does appear that the schedule has been updated, I'd expect it to reflect, on an item-by-item basis, China; but I see no additional tariff for Chinese dead bugs.

Given that the new US tariffs have been in place for 36 hours, I suspect that any claims that tariff fees have been collected on small Chinese-origin packages to be total BS. That said, "small packages" can also be expensive, and if you think about the volume of small packages from China, it adds up to stuff-not-being-made-or-bought-in-USA so I would not be surprised if they do start charging, or make the seller do it somehow. But today, again, it's just stories by people who make schitt up.

Whether Ebay or other automatically knee jerk and add 20% is a different story. Other fields of study have been fighting broad-reaching, not-actually-applicable fees for a long time and get nowhere.

[wollastoni]

From what I read, there will be a 30% tariff on small parcels (minimum $25) versus 0 today. Before "small parcels" were exempted (until $800 of goods)
Let's see if eBay applies that...

The idea is to tax/kill Temu and Shein product, but it may have a collateral impact on the insect trade. A very bad news for the European professional insect sellers and American insect collectors. We will see.

Hope you are right Chuck and that dead insects are not concerned.

[kevinkk]

Interesting, perhaps with a platform like ebay, it's going to be like the sales tax issue, for years there was no sales tax collected by ebay at all,
now it's collected from sales in states with sales taxes. We have no sales tax here in Oregon.
Clearly someone is going to have to figure out what gets tariff applied, "small packages" 0n what scale? From what entities? That's hard to believe,the logisitics oftaxing every package is virtually ludicrous.
I know about the VAT taxes from sending material to the EU, I sent a lot of home made face masks amd mittens, to tariff my package, you'd either have to believe my paperwork, or open the box.

[Chuck]

Interesting, perhaps with a platform like ebay, ...
Clearly someone is going to have to figure out what gets tariff applied, "small packages" 0n what scale? From what entities? That's hard to believe,the logisitics oftaxing every package is virtually ludicrous.

Tariffs have existed on numerous imports for a long, long time. So have taxes. The taxes were pushed on the soliciting marketplace (e.g., Ebay) a few years ago because it IS impossible (manpower) to make every importer pay. There are some 3,400 counties in USA, each with its own tax on top of state taxes and federal taxes. This is manageable with a simple database.

The Harmonization Tariff Code is huge- hundreds of thousands of categories, each potentially with its own fee rate, plus source fee rates. This too could be digitized in a database, and forced on eBay and others. That's up to the government. As it is though, this would be automating what's already required (albeit ignored), it's not new. You always had to pay the import duty; the only thing that has changed (and frankly, in a statistically very few products) is the fee rate.

Beyond that, there is virtually no control over these personal imports, particularly "junk" stuff- no UL, no EPA, no anything; collecting tariffs on this junk could be used to enforce compliance with safety and security concerns.

Concerning "small packages" of dead insects, even if there is/ was a new higher tariff rate, it would likely pale in comparison to the high costs of licensing and inspections. Now, it's clearly on the government radar that some portion- probably 90%- of dead insect imports are done illegally, so an unpaid tariff is just one more reason to seize and hold a shipment.

So you bring up a good point. We may see collection of tariff fees on eBay and Etsy and others; there is precedent, and as it is there's a lot of money not being collected.

[Miguel]

Last tuesday I paid more than 53 euros in tariff for a parcel of butterflies from Russia to Spain,even if you receive them from other countries outside the EU you have to pay,even if they come as a gift.

[wollastoni]

Miguel, maybe Russia has a specific "status" right now. Maybe your seller forgot to declare a low value on the parcel.

In France, if the declared value is below 100€, I never pay any tariff from anywhere.

No idea for Spain. It seems that each EU countries has its specific rules on small parcels. I remember that in Italy, from time to time, I had some "inspection fees" to pay and sometimes not. Never had to pay for that in France.

[Miguel]

The value was very low and I´m still waiting for the spanish customsto send me the parcel,for example for China I only pay around 7 euros with no other problems.

[wollastoni]

I guess Russian parcels have a special treatment right now.

[Parnassius26]

whole EU has now uniformed customs system. Every single parcel from an non EU country has to go through customs and if it is not a gift you will have to pay...

On ebay if an EU member buys items from non EU seller, ebay will automaticly charge VAT of the buyers country, in my case 20%...and that includes sellers from UK after brexit

[bobw]

Yep, when Brexit came in, eBay started charging us 20% VAT on evertything from the EU AND the rest of the world, which had never previously happened. This means that everything bought on eBay now costs 20% more, which is why I never use it anymore, along with, I'm sure, many other people. Yet another casualty of the Brexit disaster.

[Chuck]

Yep, when Brexit came in, eBay started charging us 20% VAT on evertything from the EU AND the rest of the world, which had never previously happened. This means that everything bought on eBay now costs 20% more, which is why I never use it anymore, along with, I'm sure, many other people. Yet another casualty of the Brexit disaster.

eBay only does what the government makes them do. The government elects to have a 20% VAT. They could have made it zero.

[bobw]

eBay only does what the government makes them do. The government elects to have a 20% VAT. They could have made it zero.

Maybe so, but eBay never added it before Brexit in January 2020, and before that, all countries outside the EU were subject to 20% VAT.

[Chuck]

Somewhere around 2020 USA enacted series of ever-increasing laws requiring that intermediaries like eBay start charging taxes. It’s likely your VAT was introduced by eBay when it upgraded the software to handle tax collection.

[kevinkk]

Every single parcel from an non EU country has to go through customs and if it is not a gift you will have to pay...

That must be what changed when I was sending material to a contact in England,when I first starting sending items to him, I could mark 0.00 for the value, the last couple years I had to fill in an amount, I don't recall any exceptions for gifts, otherwise everything would be a gift, wouldn't it?
Well, the way of the world. If there is money to be made, someone will figure out how to get it.

[daveuk]

Yep, when Brexit came in, eBay started charging us 20% VAT on evertything from the EU AND the rest of the world, which had never previously happened. This means that everything bought on eBay now costs 20% more, which is why I never use it anymore, along with, I'm sure, many other people. Yet another casualty of the Brexit disaster.

Absolutely 100% correct Bob.

[wollastoni]

Sure, when Britain left EU, they add "tariff" on EU parcels.

In France, we have this 20% VAT on all parcels outside of EU now, and we don't have it when the parcels come from the EU. That's what an economic union is about : free trade.

[bobw]

Sure, when Britain left EU, they add "tariff" on EU parcels.

In France, we have this 20% VAT on all parcels outside of EU now, and we don't have it when the parcels come from the EU. That's what an economic union is about : free trade.

Yep, we have 20% VAT on everything coming from outside the country now. The EU is by no means perfect, but the biggest mistake Britain ever made was leaving it.