Comment by halgir
1 day ago
Reminds me of when lawyers successfully argued that X-Men are not human, so that their action figures would be classified as "toys" rather than "dolls" and thus charged a lower tariff.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_Biz%2C_Inc._v._United_Stat...
There's also Converse that adds a piece of cloth to the soles of their sneakers to be able to classify them as slippers for "taxation purposes".
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-is-why-your-c...
Snuggies are "used" and not "worn" in their promotional materials, because it's better to be taxed as a blanket than a garment.
https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2017/02/snuggies-ar...
Wonder if you could either sue them for delivering an insufficient product (it does not function as a slipper under the definition for longer than a day after walking) or keep returning them under warranty.
Hoo boy we have some classics in that category in the UK.
My personal fave is when morning TV host Lorraine Kelly successfully argued she wasn’t hosting as herself but acting a character called Lorraine Kelly, with very favourable tax consequences.
There was also the famous decision in the Jaffa Cake case where the VAT treatment depended on whether or not a Jaffa cake was a cake or a biscuit https://standrewseconomist.com/2023/12/31/let-them-eat-cake-...
The tribunal decided that Jaffa Cakes were cakes because when they go stale they go hard like a cake whereas a biscuit tends to go soft when it goes stale.
I remember hearing about this because the one who wanted it classified as a biscuit proposed the test that determined it was a cake. That is the sole reason I remember this story.
There’s another one about Walkers taste sensations poppadom snacks. Question was, is it a crisp or not? Can’t remember the outcome
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This is akin to Fox News arguing in court that it is, in fact, entertainment and not news, despite it's name.
It's true though. All cable news is "entertainment news", not "news".
Nobody should have been getting their "news" from Tucker Carlson, Don Lemon, or Rachel Maddow.
IMO they shouldn't be allowed to call themselves news without putting entertainment in front.
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What Fox News argued was a bit more nuanced than that all of Fox News isn't news. Rather, "Fox successfully argued that one particular segment on Tucker Carlson’s show could only be reasonably interpreted as making political arguments, not making factual assertions, and therefore couldn’t be defamation."[1]
That feels like a fairly reasonable assertion for anybody watching Tucker Carlson.
[1] https://popehat.substack.com/p/fox-news-v-fox-entertainment-...
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Isn't it also how, many years ago, Top Gear got away with a hit job on Tesla by claiming they're just an entertainment show, so they're not obligated to do honest or truthful reviews?
I think Steven Colbert hosted a show using himself as the host. I’m not sure about the tax implications though.
And then when he tried using the "Steven Colbert" character on a different show, Comedy Central threatened him because Steven Colbert does not have rights to the "Steven Colbert" character.
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I'm pretty sure that was Chuck Noblet pretending to be Steven Colbert.
If there were any tax implications, they were incidental. The show was parody, so the opinions he espoused in character were necessarily ones he didn't actually hold.
I'm not from the UK, but wasn't there also a cake Vs biscuits thing for tax reasons?
Yes, Jaffa Cakes - minature sponge cakes flavoured with Jaffa oranges. Cakes aren't subject to Value Added Tax in the UK, which allows them to be sold more cheaply to the consumer or have a greater profit margin. A tribunal confirmed that they are true, real and genuine cakes, so you may feel entitled to enjoy your tax-free treat!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandco...
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Subway fell on the wrong side of similar tax laws in Ireland - their sugar content in their bread was too high, so for tax purposes, their subs are legally cakes: https://www.npr.org/2020/10/01/919189045/for-subway-a-ruling...
And windows being covered with bricks for tax reasons.
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Alex Jones argued this, with the obvious implication, that whoever buys Infowars also owns the character of Alex Jones, and Alex Jones cannot play Alex Jones any more without infringing their copyright. (But I suspect this incoming government doesn't care to apply logical consistency to his case)
Perhaps IP law has jumped the shark.
I had a friend that argued that Marshall Mathers (Eminem) could never actually be sued for defamation because most of the defamatory things "he" said wasn't actually him saying it, but Slim Shady.
Hah.
Sounds insane. But what is more surprising to me - is why dolls were taxed differently than other toys. At first glance, it looks like stupid rules force to play silly games.
Some trade war from the XIX century or something? Or maybe because dolls were historically thought for girls?
Possibly, bisque and china dolls were often imported from Germany.
In India, the pizza base has a different tax rate than the topping and so some restaurants will have two separate lines on your pizza bill - one for the base at 5% tax and another for the topping at 18% tax.
The tax on popcorn is also totally crazy. "Unpackaged and unlabelled popcorn with salt and spices is categorised as 'namkeen' and taxed at 5%. Pre-packed and labelled ready-to-eat popcorn attracts a 12% GST rate. Caramelized popcorn with added sugar is taxed at a higher rate of 18%."
All those make sense and are pretty common: bread is taxed lower than most pizza toppings.
Raw ingredients are taxed less than ready-to-eat or sugar-coated ultra-processed good. And I'm totally ok with that.
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The pizza thing seemed incredibly silly to me. Surely the restaurant has already paid the tax when they bought the raw ingredients? Must any product served in a restaurant be taxed according to the rate of the most highly taxed ingredient in it, regardless of proportion?
So I looked it up. And yes, that is exactly the case, and it's an absurd situation that is causing massive headaches.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-63281037
Luxury vs premium vs ‘esssential’ at work eh?
This. It’s a pretty reasonable answer to a stupid question. Dolls depict people.
did you get a second glance? did you figure out why they are taxed differently?
Probably lobbying from a local doll maker
This sort of thing happens relatively often; Sony also tried (unsuccessfully) to have the PS2 deemed a personal computer (which would have lead to 0 tariffs in the EU): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yabasic#PlayStation_2
IIRC the PS3 Linux option existed because of this same tariff.
I often wonder what the ROI is on this. How much did Sony have to pay engineers to implement this interesting but seemingly pretty useless functionality vs. what it actually saved them in the aforementioned tariffs? I know the knee jerk reaction is to say it obviously saved them some money or they wouldn't have done it, but I've seen far too much corporate stupidity in my life to take that as a given. I'd love to see the data.
Well, in the end it didn't save them anything, because the EC didn't accept that having a toy basic interpreter made what was obviously a games console a PC. I can't imagine it was terribly expensive in the scheme of things, though.
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When you ship millions of units of the kit, you only need a small savings per unit for the sum total to become a big enough saving to be noticeable to the financial dept. bean counters.
Maybe it was just a passion project for the engineers or even Ken Kutaragi ? See also Net Yarose, Linux For Playstation 2, Other OS & Yellow Dog Linux for Playstation 3.
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Or when the makers of Jaffa Cakes baked a giant 12 inch version[1] and brought it to the court to argue they were cakes and not biscuits to get lower VAT.
[1]: https://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2015/10/time-compan...
I wish supermarkets would put them on the cake aisle instead and keep the biscuit aisle pure.
That's a mass protest I could get behind
I would eat that.
Which is fucking hilarious when you think that a lot of xmen storyline is about them wanting to be perceived as humans
Which legally probably also makes it a fairy tale
"It's a nice story and the court won't prevent you from telling it, but legally these beings in that story are clearly NOT humans"
Hilarious.
Pretty much fits. It probably wouldn't be such an issue if they were just human.
And also, they are an "on your face" depiction of the dehumanization of the Holocaust victims...
And Professor X is Martin Luthor King and Magneto is Malcolm X.
Whoa, whoa, wait a minute! I can't have POLITICS in my comics, my comics are apolitical, there's good guys and bad guys, and it's always clear who the bad guys are - those that are not [like] me! /s
Sounds like Ford putting seats in the back of their vans so they could pay less tax when importing them from Mexico, then removing them before they're sold. Looks like they've now been fined, but they got away with it for a while.
This was also the reason for the (in)famous BRAT seats:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subaru_BRAT
Technically the ones they got in hot water for were from EU to get around the Chicken Tax.
A bunch of fun articles around these areas in the UK (free to read, think you might need an account though - apologies). Two food and one toy:
https://www.ft.com/content/5af5b182-349a-4a25-b4fb-4551908f2...
https://www.ft.com/content/a6a54008-6059-4052-99ae-282f148f2...
https://www.ft.com/content/a8d6413e-1184-4f89-9bcb-4f6cb8d7a...
FT Alphaville is such an excellent column
I wonder if there is any place where one can look up all these sort of creative legal-tax shenanigan stories. They are so fun and such an interesting lens to see what _is_ via this interlinked, case-specific web of events.
The book is called Daylight Robbery: How Tax Shaped Our Past and Will Change Our Future
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43805741-daylight-robber...
When Trump set a tariff on German optics because he was mad at Germany, Leica had a workaround as well.
Most of their equipment is made in Portugal and finished in Germany, with whatever WTO agreed % of value added that allows them to stamp "Made In Germany" on the goods.
So for US markets they issues a series of lenses that were more fully finished in the Portuguese factory such that they could be stamped "Made In Portugal".
The tax system is over complicated! Why the distinction between toys and dolls?
Regulatory capture most likely
The Doll Industrial Complex
Or my shirt that has a tiny, useless pocket on the inside of my shirt (down where it might often be tucked inside of your waistband.) It has a tag with a picture of sunglasses on it, and a reasonably sized pair of sunglasses might just tenuously perch inside.
This makes it a jacket, and jackets are taxed at a lower rate than shirts.
The same shenanigans more or less work for most types of taxation. There’s always an angle to reduce or even eliminate taxes, unless you work on salary or for wages. It’s clear who the system is built for lol.
You ought to see the magic they do when coding medical procedures for billing in the US. It makes these tax shenanigans look simple.
Why would jackets even be taxed differently than shirts. It's so silly.
It’s a silly world where people who never worked send people who only worked as mobsters to take money from people who work for a living. Then the first two groups share that money in 999999:1 proportion. They call it “taxation”.
It has upsides like having an army for defense, roads and other common things. But don’t forget the primary nature and motivation behind it. They just want your money, and your offspring to please them in various ways.
5% of a $100 jacket is $5
15% of a $33 shirt is $5
5% of a $33 jacket is $1.65
...it's definitely gamesmanship but if you squint you can see where it comes from.
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Freezing to death is worse than looking nice?
I don't think I've ever seen that on any of my shirts here in the US. Is this in the US?
I believe it was sold into the US market originally. I bought it second hand in a secondary market that sources its used articles primarily from the USA and Canada.
Thanks, amazing story! I found this nice coverage of the events: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/92007/why-us-federal-cou...
In universe, arguing the X-Men are not human would put you firmly in the villain category.
exactly, that was core to the whole plot; oppressed mutants fighting to have their basic human rights recognized.
So it turns out that the final boss denying mutants their humanity are... the tax authorities.
Capitalists? in the villain category? Impossible!
This has interesting implications for the Marvel canon, as the conflict between average humans and mutants is a primary plot driver for x-men
> Reminds me of when lawyers successfully argued that X-Men are not human
Isn't that true though?
Was their lawyer William Stryker?