The reason your Columbia shirt has a tiny pocket near your waistline (2019) | Hacker News Reader

The reason your Columbia shirt has a tiny pocket near your waistline (2019)

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132 pointsthetopher59 comments

Of course the circumvention of the "chicken tax" is probably the most well-known example of tariff engineering:

> Ford imported all of its first-generation Ford Transit Connect models as "passenger vehicles" by including rear windows, rear seats, and rear seat belts. The vehicles are exported from Turkey on ships owned by Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics (WWL), arrive in Baltimore, and are converted back into light trucks at WWL's Vehicle Services Americas, Inc. facility by replacing rear windows with metal panels and removing the rear seats and seat belts. The removed parts are not shipped back to Turkey for reuse, but shredded and recycled in Ohio. The process exploits the loophole in the customs definition of a light truck; as cargo does not need seats with seat belts or rear windows, presence of those items automatically qualifies the vehicle as a "passenger vehicle" and exempts the vehicle from "light truck" status. The process costs Ford hundreds of dollars per van, but saves thousands in taxes. U.S. Customs and Border Protection estimated that between 2002 and 2018 the practice saved Ford $250 million in tariffs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax#Circumventing_the_...

There was a Radiolab story fight about dolls vs toys

https://radiolab.org/podcast/177199-mutant-rights

Little blurb

  …who noticed something interesting while looking at a book of tariff classifications. "Dolls," which represent human beings, are taxed at almost twice the rate of "toys," which represent something not human - such as robots, monsters, or demons. As soon as they read that, Sherry and Indie saw dollar signs. it just so happened that one of their clients, Marvel Comics, was importing its action figures as dolls.
  …
  So Sherry and Indie went down to the customs office with a bag of XMEN action figures to convince the US government that these mutants are NOT human.

As if Marvel canon wasn't confusing enough already, now customs is involved? Sheesh.

Are we going to get a Troy Miller origin story? Bit by an improperly declared radioactive package, he dedicated his life to defending our borders from the Guild of Calamitous Import.

Life Contradicts Art?

That was mentioned in the show. X-men is all about wanting to be accepted as equal human beings and now the creators are going to classify them as non human to save a buck.

I'd also note that Ford's attempt to dodge the tariff here wasn't successful. The US DOJ sued and Ford coughed up $365 million to settle the lawsuit: https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/ford/2024/03/11/ford-...

A rare example of actual consequences for not following the spirit of the law, but only the letter of it

Would it have turned out differently if they sold the vehicles as-is and included a "truck conversion kit" with the parts they used to turn them into light trucks? My thinking is based on the Subaru BRAT and its two bucket seats attached in the pickup bed.

I'm assuming it's cheaper/easier to sell light trucks than passenger vehicles in the US. (I'm aware of the difference in emission regulations)

See also "The Subaru Brat" https://www.wired.com/2014/12/subaru-brat/

I'm going to start compiling a list of stories to reply with when people say "environmental activists are too preachy/emotional about their work" and the Ford motor company manufacturing seats, seat belts, and windows, shipping them in vans to get out of a few thousand dollars in taxes per vehicle, and then shredding those things without them seeing a single ass in their entire existence after removing them from the vehicles for "recycling" is a great first item.

This legit made me ill and the people responsible for it, the people who permitted it, and the executives who oversaw it should all be in prison.

Yes me too. It's the first thing I thought of. The "and recycled" part is clearly an afterthought/greenwashing of this horrible practice. It's important to realise too that even when fully recycling a product) and it's very doubtful to be the case here) its definitely not zero impact on the environment.

These seats could have been sold as spares, conversion kits, even put into other new cars.

I think this behaviour should be criminalised and I'm not taking about the tax evasion.

It's also an indictment of our legal and regulatory system that allows this interpretation to go forward (no doubt on the advice of very expensive lawyers and lobbyists hired by Ford).

People may disagree on if the truck tariff is good policy nor not. But allowing Ford to go through with this weird kabuki dance pageant of waste when it's blatantly clear that their intent is to import a truck is absurd and corrupt.

As a sibling comment points out, the American legal and regulatory system in fact did not allow this interpretation. It came down rather heavily on Ford for trying to pull this:

https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/ford/2024/03/11/ford-...

> These seats could have been sold as spares, conversion kits, even put into other new cars.

Or even just shipped the fuck back to the factory! Like good god. If you're gonna have like a thousand seat and window combos that just get shipped back and forth between these factories, that's still wasteful, but I dunno, maybe it's purely an emotional point, but the fact that they're manufactured, fitted, shipped, and destroyed just hits so much harder.

Doing this as a dodge this way would be shitty, but at least make an ounce of sense. Doing it the way they actually did, just making and destroying who knows how many products for literally no reason apart from skating by customs is fucking OBSCENE to me.

Edit: A sibling comment here pointed out the FTC "came down hard" on Ford, which some quick back of napkin math translates to roughly 20% of their Q2 2023 profits to account for ten years of this tom-fuckery, covering hundreds of thousands of vans which doubtlessly contained hundreds of thousands if not millions of parts that never served a day of use and were sent to landfill, oh sorry "recycled," by Ford's partner in Ohio. Granted, more than most corporate fines I've done that kind of math for, but also incredible ROI on the part of Ford motor company. Meanwhile mother nature takes another for the team.

I feel sick.

Edit to edit: I maintain that as long as the "penalties" for this kind of horseshit are fines that go to the company and no further, we will never make an ounce of progress on this. I challenge anyone who feels inclined to take it on to explain to me why every Ford executive that oversaw the company while it was doing this should not be personally financially liable for it, in addition to the company itself paying fines. There is no fucking way Ford motor manufactured, shipped, and destroyed millions of van seats and windows without the executives knowing about it.

If it makes you feel better, there is a miniscule that the people responsible for it, the people who permitted it, and the executives who oversaw it could possibly go to prison for not doing it. fiduciary duty baby!

> This legit made me ill and the people responsible for it, the people who permitted it, and the executives who oversaw it should all be in prison.

In prison for what crime? Perhaps feel sick about those writing the laws, instead of those who are following them?

Wasting non-renewable resources.

That's not a crime as evidenced by the dumb tarrif loophole. The tragedy is the lawmakers who don't care that their laws are responsible for this.

It's not just taxes. U.S. environmental and labor regulations are a big part of why Ford would prefer to manufacture vans in Turkey, burning bunker oil to ship the vans overseas and wasting energy to make and then destroy seats, seat belts, and windows.

You're not mad at the person who wrote the tax code?

Taxes are pretty arbitrary. Unless you intend to enforce the spirit rather than the letter of the law you're always going to be playing cat and mouse games. People who generate money want to keep it and people who give away money want to take it from people who have money. One will ALWAYS be a step ahead of the other.

If you enforce the spirit of the law people call foul and stop playing the game with you.

Don't get mad at the mice, just build better mouse traps.

"Don't hate the player; hate the game" is the cheaters motto.

I've always found it weird how so many folks will shout at the top of their lungs how good it is to not have any integrity.

It depends on whether it's more moral to keep a department of 5000 people employed (all paying income taxes) while avoiding import taxes or scrap the whole department because taxes make the department unprofitable.

A business will never choose to keep a department open at a loss so it can "do it's part" in paying taxes.

In this case the car manufacturer would just choose to not sell that make and model in the states and a whole department has no reason to exist

Honda had a subsidiary to import US soy to Japan since their containers to Japan were empty.

I get being appalled at the waste involved. But that waste was cheaper than the customs duties they would otherwise have had to pay. In other words, all that appalling waste was more efficient than the duties would have been.

To put it another way, I believe that you should be even more appalled at the waste that the customs duties would have imposed.

What on earth are you talking about? One of these things is a waste of finite resources, and the other is a "waste" of money, which is a value-storage concept, and it is a concept indeed since the vast, vast, vast majority of money doesn't actually exist beyond a number in a balance sheet.

Yes, it would've costed Ford more to comply with the regulations by the letter and by the spirit of what was being asked of them. This should be the BARE MINIMUM we expect from members of the business community. I'm so sick of corporate apologia where some dick-headed corporation finds loopholes and ways to re-categorize things as what they definitely, categorically are not and this is not only often not criticized, but is celebrated by people! The only way this is a good thing is if you take from first principles that it's Ford's duty as an organization to duck the LAW, the result of the process of consented governance, and the flaunting of the authorities entrusted to carry out that governance, at every conceivable place to keep every last red cent they can, irrespective of the larger harmful effects it has on our world and society. If that's truly the case, then I submit that our society is not in fact for people, it is in fact, for corporations and the people just happen to live in it.

Whether you agree with a law or a regulation or not, you are bound to respect it. If you disagree about a speed limit set on a highway, do 150 through it, and get a ticket and show up to traffic court and argue that the limit should be higher, you will pay your ticket because your opinion is irrelevant to that law. You're more than free (and I would encourage) you to advocate for changing those laws/regulations, to weigh in when public opinion is requested, to vote for politicians who support what you want to see your government do, all of that is completely, 100% above board. But once all those processes are done and the laws are written, you can't simply fucking ignore them because you don't think they're the right laws. That's anarchy, and not the fun kind.

It's also why converse shoes have a little fuzzy later of material on the bottom, they import them as slippers instead of shoes.

I that what that is. It confused me, I thought it was some strange misguided variant of the felt sole wading boot. when I first saw it.

https://thewadingkit.com/felt-sole-wading-boots/

> certain women’s garments with “pockets below the waist” get lower duty rates than those without. Because of that, a number of the women’s shirts Columbia Sportswear makes are intentionally designed with tiny pockets near the waistline, which lowers the cost of importing them.

Thank you

Thanks for the gist.

The clickbait title could use an edit:

> The reason some Columbia shirts have a tiny pocket near waistline: lower import duties

I work in a different industry (but still manufacturing) and it's mind boggling how much brain power and employee time is devoted to "correctly" interacting with the customs and importing system. I wouldn't be surprised if 30% to 40% of the total man hours at some companies are spent directly or indirectly related to the HTS system. This includes products built in North America - you still need to do a huge amount of accounting to show that you're meeting [one of the] the definition[s] of substantial transformation.

I can't really frame this as a global criticism either, the system has clearly evolved around the fact that importers of cheap overseas goods are constantly trying to game the rules to pay lower tariffs than competitors (see Ford with the Transit Connect).

The most frustrating part is political, and two parts:

* US politics have destabilized so much in the last decade that the rules are constantly changing, exceptions being granted and taken away, etc. This has dramatically increased the amount of brain share devoted to tariff engineering rather than product engineering.

* The tariff exclusion process (especially the recent Section 301 tariffs) is heavily lobbyist based. Small players are basically crushed while larger competitors are granted exclusions.

> US politics have destabilized so much in the last decade that the rules are constantly changing

Multiplying, too

I worked on my first (and my company's first) hardware product and the HTS regulations were absolutely eye opening. I lived my entire life without knowing about it until I had to actually deal with import/export of a product. It is mind numbing dealing with it. Correctly discovering, interpreting, understanding, categorizing, and conforming with the worldwide process is its own form of career specialization (and hell). No thank you, never again.

A bit related: In the early aughts we bought a Porsche 911, which had a ridiculously tiny back seat. According to the dealer, it existed because two-seaters were considered sports cars and were therefore costlier to ensure.

Worked out perfectly for us because our children were young, we lived at the beach, and driving them to school on the freeway was an absolute blast.

I highly doubt actuaries are dumb enough to allow this arbitrage at the insurance company’s expense.

> I highly doubt actuaries are dumb enough...

Sweetly naive

Remember that there are also insurance regulators that must be satisfied. It might not be worth fighting them on something like this.

That makes it even more suspect. Regulators are incentivized to ensure prices are proportional to the risk. They would have nothing to gain by asking insurers to have all other drivers subsidize sports car drivers just because it has more than 2 seats (if that is even a true scenario).

That sounds like some sort of urban legend that originates from people repeating what other people think they know about how insurance works... like the long debunked "red cars cost more to insure".

It really doesn't pass the sniff test, because insurers don't need to know how many seats a car has to determine whether or not a vehicle is a sports car. The make and model is sufficient to determine this. Insurers already have a list of all known mass produced vehicles and their attributes.

Also, most insurers don't rate "sports cars" as more expensive than other cars, outright, because sports cars are not overall actually riskier to insure than non-sports cars. The risk of the driver matters quite a bit more than the car. If you look at IIHS loss data, you'll find that cheap vehicles marketed to subprime markets often have higher liability loss rates than untrendy sports cars marketed to old men.

e.g. Late model Porsche 911s and Corvettes have long topped the least risky in terms of property damage liability according to IIHS data. Why? My guess is that the only people buying these vehicles new are rich old dudes who drive them carefully on Sundays and pay attention while doing so. But despite also being a similarly powerful car, the Dodge Charger Hellcat is one of the most risky. But it appeals to a very different crowd.

Thanks for the treatise. Love the research and I agree with your very close reasoning.

In my defense, I attributed it to the dealer instead of stating it as undisputed fact because it has always sounded a little funky to me. On the other hand, the seat is so small there isn’t any obvious reason for its existence.

The subject was interesting to me but not interesting enough to pursue it much further because I was going to get the car anyway.

Even better is the shoes (like chucks) that have fuzzy soles to be classified as slippers.

Or how about the seats in Ford's transit vans?

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/ford-p...

We had a scam in Poland decades ago, where companies could buy a station wagon with this metal grating between rear seats and the trunk [0], which was enough to classify the whole vehicle as a truck, which gave you tax breaks not available for passenger vehicles.

[0] https://ocdn.eu/pulscms-transforms/1/QCvk9kpTURBXy83N2RiNjQ1...

Wait until you hear about the cars in Sweden that are “converted” to tractors so children can drive them without a license.

I've never understood why that works. They clearly aren't slippers. They aren't sold as slippers. Nobody looks at them and says "nice slippers". Chuck Taylor importing their shoes as slippers feels fraudulent.

The tarrif document defines slippers and having fuzzy soles meets the definition.

Saves a bunch of money, so I'm not sure why any (imported) shoes are sold without fuzzy soles.

Tariff law doesn't just look at the label on the box. Otherwise there would be bigger problems.

Wow, I had no idea! That is kinda clever and horrible at the same time.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/aUnF80WY8R8

This is the kind of stuff that goes on for decades without anyone batting an eye at it. I welcome the Department of Government Efficiency if it can read an article like this and take action on it to generate revenue that was accounted for in revenue projections and forgotten about when it came time to collect.

Australia replaced thousands of tax code rules with a simple goods & services tax (GST), which is like a VAT. It noticeably improved the economy by reducing paperwork and overheads, especially for small to medium business.

We need more of this kind of thinking from governments instead of just layering more and more paperwork on top of existing paperwork!

Does anyone have a picture of the pocket? The item linked from the article no longer exists.

I looked as well. There is a "Women's PFG Tamiami™ II Short Sleeve Shirt"

https://www.columbia.com/p/womens-pfg-tamiami-ii-short-sleev...

which has two small pockets on the side but it seems above the waist.

they describe them as "Two zip pockets on the side seams secure small items like keys, hair ties, and lip balm."

I think the original line mentioned in OP is completely gone and now we are on the Tamiami II style atm.

I think the waist is defined as the narrowest part of the garment

ah that would make sense then!

Reminds me of the “Blues Smoke Detector” on Nathan For You: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8Nhn5n3eyhY

Government regulations are always going to be far behind clever people. It is better to reduce government regulations and use the courts to stop abuses.

This is stupid. The law shouldn’t be written in such a way that companies can exploit silly loopholes, nor should it be written in such a way that is so invasive to normal business operations.

> This is stupid. The law shouldn’t be written in such a way that companies can exploit silly loopholes, nor should it be written in such a way that is so invasive to normal business operations.

Note that the article discusses that these are not loopholes in the sense of weird unexpected hacks, but that the original exceptions were intentionally written in response to lobbying by manufacturers betting that they can offset their lobbying costs by the associated reduction in tariffs.

Orthogonally, though, even if these were loopholes that manufacturers were wriggling through against lawmakers' intentions, then (1) I think that there is no such thing as a law that is written so that it has literally no loopholes—even to make the claim, you'd have to define what a "loophole" is, which would probably require first require a precise definition of what the intent of the law is, at which point that would be the law and any work-arounds would be not loopholes, by definition—and (2) more or less because of (1), these things are still enforced by humans; as redpanda notes (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41594968), one of Ford's attempts at such skulduggery was successfully stopped by a DOJ lawsuit.

yup, my first reaction was “who lobbied to get their products excluded from the tariffs”

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