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Comment by pavlov | Hacker News Reader

Many European postal carriers have now suspended all package deliveries to the US.

The problem isn’t new tariffs, but how the USA wants to collect them. It’s mentioned in the article:

“IMAG's Ms Muth said the overarching concern is that many postal carriers are not set up to ‘collect and remit’ the duties specified by Donald Trump's executive order.”

Normally tariffs are collected by the receiving country when a package arrives. Trump wants foreign countries’ postal carriers to collect US tariffs and somehow remit the money to the American authorities… But there are no systems set up for this. The Americans haven’t even provided a way to send those remittances.

Obviously this is not something that postal carriers around the world can just spin up in two weeks, just because the Americans suddenly decided they want foreign post offices to collect their import taxes. So the only option is not to ship to America at all.

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When the EU [1] implemented these systems they announced it years in advance, delayed the deadline due to Covid disruption, and it's still optional — the alternative is for the receiving post carrier to charge the taxes and an administration fee.

But using this system, I can order something from Ali Express for €10 + €2.50 VAT, pay Ali Express €12.50, and they send the VAT to Denmark. The tracking number on the package proves the VAT was paid, and the package sails through customs.

(There's also a UK system, very similar, but I have forgotten the name of it.)

[1] https://vat-one-stop-shop.ec.europa.eu/index_en

But VAT is not a tariff

The parent's point is that these kind of systems can be implemented by postal services seamlessly, but not on a month's notice. I don't see how the form of the tax is material to the point being made.

>Normally tariffs are collected by the receiving country when a package arrives.

For good reason too, the sender engaged the carrier. The receiver has no business relationship with the carrier, so they don't have an opportunity to pay any tariff to the carrier.

This is especially relevant when the carrier engages a local contractor for the last leg of a delivery, because they don't even have a presence there.

When I order things from China to the UK, on AliExpress, they arrive 'delivered duty paid' - i.e. aliexpress collects certain taxes from me at checkout, then the item doesn't get held up at the border.

So there does seem to be some mechanism for closing the buyer-seller-taxman loop. Unfortunately I have yet to find a reliable way to send things using this system.

Possible the UK version of this? https://vat-one-stop-shop.ec.europa.eu/index_en

I remember one UK content creator had some recipe books. I think the way to get them to EU was order from Ebay. SO big enough platform to have implemented whole thing... Not sure if that really works.

Royal Mail have a decent explanation: https://www.royalmail.com/business/international/guide/deliv...

Searching "EU IOSS UK" also shows some sort of support from Shopify and similar.

Every business that wants to send something to the UK is required to register with the British government and collect VAT on items shipped to Britain. So yes, the US could have a system like that - just get a couple DOGE kids to vibe code it tomorrow, huh.

https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/united-kingdom/corporate/other-...

Foreign businesses aren't required to register and collect UK VAT on items they send there, but by doing so they avoid their customers paying the £8 handling fee charged by Royal Mail.

An £8 fee makes a cheap product bought from China unappealing, so those sites do pay the fees. It's less important if the British person is buying something for €100 from a tiny French business.

I was gonna mention that, but I felt I was waffling on a bit, so I deleted it!

We've got the same thing with GST, basically like VAT or sales tax. So that'll appear on the invoice from AliExpress or Steam or wherever.

Businesses have a threshold before they need to charge it though. If they're under that threshold (like a small business), but the value of goods is over another threshold, then the receiver has to pay GST.

If I remember correctly, customs would mail me a letter, and I'd pay it like a tariff. Which brings me back to the main point, that's just that the carrier has nothing to do with it. It's ridiculous to get them involved in a transaction they're not a party to.

Process might be slightly different, I'm remembering from about fifteen years ago.

Using the EU and UK systems is optional, but without using it the small business's customers might be annoyed by the handling fees applied by the recipient's mail carrier, and the delay it causes.

I have seen some foreign merchants (I think DigiKey?) offer the choice, as their business customers don't need to pay VAT directly in this way, and may well prefer to do the import paperwork themselves.

I haven't seen a choice for any large retailer (Amazon, eBay, Etsy, AliExpress etc). They don't want customers annoyed by fees, or returned packages from unpaid fees and duties.

It's better if the sender includes tariffs/import duties in the price the customer pays originally, but it's easy to set up a system where the receiving country collects taxes on incoming deliveries. Ireland has it: https://www.anpost.com/Post-Parcels/Receiving/Pay-Customs-Ch...

I get an SMS saying that my parcel has arrived in the country but I have to pay customs before it's released for delivery, done via the site above.

This sort of thing happened to some extent with Brexit, too; after the chaos died down some carriers resumed service to the UK, but some didn't.

I wish the rest of world would finally push back against US bullying. It's so pathetic that they don't even try.

When the Obama administration forced every bank in the world to start reporting the data and assets of any US-adjacent person (creating nightmare scenarios that continue today for most US expats), the entire world just rolled over and gave in. It was one of the greatest abuses of power, ever, all enabled by the US dollar's reserve currency status.

I can only hope this time is different due to the current administration being more hated around the world.

I think if you send something under 100$ and its person to person you are still good though.

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