Hacker News Reader

The issue is that when the law was crafted, it wasn’t feasible for foreign companies to directly sell to consumers at scale.

The internet facilitated a direct to consumer model that allows foreign companies to almost completely bypass import taxes.

View on HN

The $800 limit was set during the Obama administration, well after internet direct to consumer sales existed.

Yeah but the scale wasn’t apparent yet. Normal people didn’t commonly order firstly from Ali express in 2015.

If you look at the amount of de minimis goods shipped the year after the amount was raised vs today, they have increased over 10x.

Also the pre 2016 limit was $200, still low enough to allow the temu business model.

The EU generally has a de minimis limit of 150 EUR for custom duties but individual members levy sales tax from the first EUR onward. The USA could do the same. Of course, this would make things more expensive, too, but less so than sinking your trade boat through tariffs ;)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com