Jay Fishbein wrote: "If it means assembled from foreign
parts.....well......"
The history of tariffs is, simply put, a can of worms. The origins of Made
in and Assembled in lay in the McKinley Tariff Act of 1890. This act
not only boosted import tariffs significantly, but also retaliated against
European countries that had begun requiring that the country of origin be
made labeled on most imports. From that point on, the ultimate purchasers
of imports could identify them as such. Forty years later, the
SmootHawley Tariff Act of 1930 '304 strengthened this requirement even
further, asserting that at least 75% of the product was made in America to
carry that identification. Assembled in USA could be used in cases where
50% or more of the assembly was carried out in the US.
Since every tax imposed by government spawns more attempts to avoid a new
tax, it is not surprising that when the government introduced differences in
tariffs on imports of made in and assembled in goods, a flood of new
attempts at tax avoidance came into play.
Buster Evans
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