Tariff law

[Alan H]

The things I'm learning while doing this whole X marks tartan thing.

I had no idea how patently insane and freaking ridiculous tariff laws were until I started reading them. Looks like Canada's generic tariff on most imported textile goods is between 16.5 and 19 percent. Interestingly enough there's no tariff on "prayer shawls". Do you think we could claim that the wool that might be coming in was just one gigantic prayer shawl?



...they're certainly not going to be made into "protective suits to be worn in a noxious atmosphere"..LOLOL

At least, this is the deal when the stuff is imported from India.

Incredibly, they define some materials by how big, in microns, the fibers are. Goods made from material containing fibers less than 18.5 microns in diameter are taxed differently from those made of material which is comprised of fibers larger than 18.5 microns.

Oyyy...

[Alan H]

Wait, Canada's tariff laws are all online in the Canada Gazette....

[Alan H]

For example, if Steve and Freedom Kilts or Bear at Bear kilts were to claim that the kilts their made were made and marketed and designed under "their own label" and were

uummmmm..........swimwear...(hey, you swim in your kilt,don't you?)

we could import the material duty-free.

GOD, this is ARCANE.

Anyway,

Turns out that the general principles in Canada's import duties defines the price used as a tariff for "Most Favored Nations" (MFN's), and the tariff's charged on material from Commonwealth Nations is to average 54.6% of that levied on MFN materials. See the law I've copied and put in my gallery. It's screenshot of a pdf files snatched from the Canada Gazette, outlining the tariff on wool material over 400 grams per meter in the price we'd be paying.

You'll notice that the tarriff levied on such wool imported from Most Favored Nations is zero...it's free. Since Great Britain is a Commonwealth country, the tarriff that Canada levies on British wool is 54.6% that of any MFN, and fifty four percent of zero is zero.

In other words, there IS NO TARIFF (import duties) on British wool inported into Canada.

It took me about an hour and a half to figure this out.

[Riverkilt]

Could this be some of what we were talking about a few months ago where other countries are getting back at Bush's high textile tariffs on imports into the U.S.??

Ron

[RockyR]

When you IMPORT material, it's the job of the EXPORTER (and he's held liable) to accurately desribe what's in the package. Even if you'd like to claim them as "prayer shawls", the exporter would have to risk it and put that on the customs declaration.

At least, that's how it is when we order material. about 1/2 the time we get hit by customs, about 1/2 the time we skate through. It's a crap shoot. I've heard that Canada's customs are much stricter and catch much more product.

[Alan H]

Could this be some of what we were talking about a few months ago where other countries are getting back at Bush's high textile tariffs on imports into the U.S.??

Ron

This is all new to me, you know? I mean, import-export law....I know nada. I sure did read a lot about NAFTA while I was Googling around for information, though. Also, come to find out that Canada has signed Free Trade Agreements with...get this....

Costa Rica and Chile.

Huh?

[Colin]

Could this be some of what we were talking about a few months ago where other countries are getting back at Bush's high textile tariffs on imports into the U.S.??

Ron

This is all new to me, you know? I mean, import-export law....I know nada. I sure did read a lot about NAFTA while I was Googling around for information, though. Also, come to find out that Canada has signed Free Trade Agreements with...get this....

Costa Rica and Chile.

Huh?

We get some pretty kick-*** Cuban cigars up here too!

[macgreggor]

so alan,
is the tarrif between canada and the us on finished garments just as arcane? how about the tarrif on wool cloth re exproted from canada to the us???
oh wait, i'm getting a headache, think i will go have a little lie down
thanks for all the time and headaches you are putting in
macG

[Colin]

so alan,
is the tarrif between canada and the us on finished garments just as arcane? how about the tarrif on wool cloth re exproted from canada to the us???
oh wait, i'm getting a headache, think i will go have a little lie down
thanks for all the time and headaches you are putting in
macG

Because of NAFTA, there should be no tariff on goods between the US and Canada. Meaning that wool made in Canada should have no tariffs when coming into the US. At least that is my understanding. Is this correct Alan?

[Alan H]

so alan,
is the tarrif between canada and the us on finished garments just as arcane? how about the tarrif on wool cloth re exproted from canada to the us???
oh wait, i'm getting a headache, think i will go have a little lie down
thanks for all the time and headaches you are putting in
macG

Because of NAFTA, there should be no tariff on goods between the US and Canada. Meaning that wool made in Canada should have no tariffs when coming into the US. At least that is my understanding. Is this correct Alan?

That is correct. Here's my thinking.....word is starting to come in from some kiltmakers about the N. Bately Ltd. material and it's good. I'll leave the specifics for a thread in a couple of weeks, but it's good. OK, but the tariffs for importing UK wool material into the USA can vary between 10 - 30 percent, depending on the day of the week, what the Customs guy had for dinner last night, and who-knows-what. In other words, that $25/meter cloth could actually cost us well over $30 a meter when it gets here. The stinker is, we don't know what the Cutoms guys will ding us, so that means we don't know what to charge YOU GUYS for the cloth. Now, that's a headache, eh? On top of that is the actual cost of shipping, which will happen no matter where we send it, and may add $5 a meter, right there. That's if we use a USA importer. Shipping into Canada will probably be about the same.

The USA importer would have to ship the cloth out to the X Marks participants who ordered it once it got here. So would a Canadian importer.

Now, if we ship into Canada instead, there's NO tariff. That means that the $25 a meter cloth costs us.....$25 a meter, not $33 a meter or some amount we don't know about. Shipping will still add about $5 a meter.

Now since most of our buyers are in the USA, the "importer" in Canada would have to mail the cloth out across the border If there was a big tariff in the USA on stuff coming from Canada, then it might not be worth going through the Canadian importer......but NAFTA says "no tarriff...North American Free Trade Agreement". Ta-Daaaa... problem solved.

Finally, Hamish would like to not have to pay the import duty TWICE wouldn't he? Well, if the cloth gets shipped to Canada, and then back to the UK, there's NO IMPORT DUTY either way. There's shipping, yeah, but I can only do so much for us, you know?

Conclusion; it should be a LOT less expensive to import the cloth into Canada rather than directly into the USA. We have a Canadian company that's willing to do this project and just make a few bucks on it for their time. If we go with the N. Bately cloth, I'll probably recommend to the Chief that this is how we go about it.