this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2025
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Leopards Ate My Face

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 1 week ago (3 children)

The catch is that the ones who don't understand always, ALWAYS think it's the other country that pays the tariff. Every time.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 week ago (2 children)

The dumb thing is that it doesn't matter who pays the tariff, it still will get passed to the consumer. Consider a scenario where the government starts taxing Amazon $100 per order no matter what's in it. If you buy a $10 item on Amazon, how are they going to pay the $100 tax on that? Amazon will just add a $100 tax fee to your order because they can't keep running a business if that cost isn't baked into the final price. It doesn't matter who actually delivers money to the government, the tax gets paid by all parties involved.

FYI, sales tax is already done this way. Sales tax is collected from businesses, not customers, but customers still pay sales tax because that's just how economics works.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 week ago

Right, you and I get that, my point is that the people who are confused why their tariff-impacted goods cost more don't get that. They think the other country pays it, full stop.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago

Even if that’s true the price would still increase. The exporting country would just charge extra to make up the difference. It’s not like they would just absorb the extra cost by pure goodwill for the oh so poor American people.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

Well, that's exactly what Trump said would happen, so why would they think otherwise?