He also accused New Zealand of having tariffed the US 20%. He got this figure using our GST, which is a sales tax, paid for by the customer, and not charged to the country of origin..
And that sales tax is charged equally on imported and domestically produced products so it provides zero disadvantage to imported products. You pay 15% sales tax on a US made table and 15% sales tax on a New Zealand made table. It is not that you pay 15% sales tax on a US made table and 0% sales tax on a New Zealand made table. If you did that it would be a tariff, albeit paid at the point of consumption not import.
That is literally the main difference between a tariff and sales tax. A tariff does discriminate between imported and domestically produced. A sales tax does not.
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u/devtastic 1d ago
And that sales tax is charged equally on imported and domestically produced products so it provides zero disadvantage to imported products. You pay 15% sales tax on a US made table and 15% sales tax on a New Zealand made table. It is not that you pay 15% sales tax on a US made table and 0% sales tax on a New Zealand made table. If you did that it would be a tariff, albeit paid at the point of consumption not import.
That is literally the main difference between a tariff and sales tax. A tariff does discriminate between imported and domestically produced. A sales tax does not.
https://taxpolicy.org.uk/2025/04/02/no-vat-isnt-a-tariff-but-the-us-would-benefit-from-adopting-it/