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I'd call it 'gaming the system' rather than 'fraud', but am not a lawyer. @maushu, the real solution here is to get rid of the dumb trade barriers in the first

I'd call it 'gaming the system' rather than 'fraud', but am not a lawyer. @maushu, the real solution here is to get rid of the dumb trade barriers in the first place. The 'problem' of dodging round them pales into insignificance in comparison, if indeed it is a problem at all. Presumably a lot of Indian politicians thought the way you did, until policies changed, and India started growing.

davidw 16y ago
I agree with getting rid of the trade barriers, but dodging them is not a solution and leads to a society where avoiding "inconvenient" laws is seen as the norm. This is very much a slippery slope - and is one of the things I feel is problematic with modern Italy. Berlusconi has been on trial for attempting to corrupt judges, but many people seem not to care - who hasn't tried to skirt around the law, anyway?
- Gormo 16y ago
  The businessman in the example did not avoid the laws. Far from it - he found a way to comply with them at the lowest possible cost. Deliberately subverting the law should not be commended. But in this example, he was able to work around the deleterious effect of a bad law while fully adhering to its provisions. I can't see a problem with this.
  - Retric 16y ago
    The way the law is enforced is not the same thing as what it says. Let's say he shipped one shoe out of a pair to the country and it's worth 10c. Then he ships the second shoe in the set and it's now worth 10$ because the first one is already in the country.
    - Gormo 16y ago
      Do customs duties ever apply to the resale price of merchandise after it has been imported and made available on the local market? Do they apply to the market value of finished goods when importing their unfinished components? The way the law is enforced is very much a function of what it says. I'm fairly confident in assuming that the customs authority didn't arbitrarily make up the "auction goods with duties unpaid for 30 days" rule, and that it was fully rooted in applicable law.
      - Retric 16y ago
        First off, I don't know Indian law, but normally import tax is based on wholesale value. AKA One ton of steel is worth X, pay Y% of X. Now, there are plenty of loopholes in the law but, just as you can get a speeding ticket while traveling below the posted speed limit in a blizzard the basic rules are usually still enforceable. The law may go to great detail about what how and why to post a given speed limit, but they are only guidelines. EX: A friend was given a speeding ticket by a cop who did not know how fast he was going AND did not know what the speeding limit was on that road. However, the Judge decided that the cop as an expert witness and he had to pay the fine. PS: You often see the same sorts of things in IRS audits, because you don’t get to just follow 95% of the rules.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- confuzatron 16y ago
  I have to disagree. If an official puts up a barrier and tells you to pay him to pass through it, but you can easily walk round the barrier, do so. It's his job to make the barrier more difficult to get round. I would say that there ought to be no expectation that people should meekly adhere to the spirit of stupid laws. If officialdom wants to implement stupid laws, let them at least make the effort to do it properly :) @davidw "To do otherwise leads to corruption and disdain for the rule of law." Maybe, but bad laws do that too. In the real world, people want to get things done rather than go into politics to replace the eedjits that are stopping them.
  - davidw 16y ago
    The proper thing in a democracy is not to meekly accept stupid laws, but to abolish them. To do otherwise leads to corruption and disdain for the rule of law. You can hit the 'reply' link to reply to comments. In reply to your observation that people "just want to get stuff done" - great, they can elect politicians who will try and make it possible to do so. Otherwise, they should obey the law. It's there (or should be) so that one person's "getting stuff done" doesn't impinge on the rights of other people, or society as a whole. Clearly, people have different ideas about what laws are just and so on, but just ignoring whatever laws don't suit your fancy is not a recipe for a healthy place to live.
    - paulgb 16y ago
      Sometimes finding ways to skirt those laws can be a more effective way of having them abolished. Case in point, the province of Nova Scotia was one of the last places in North America to ban shopping on Sundays. An exception was made for stores under a certain square-footage. After unsuccessfully lobbying the government to overturn the ban, the major grocery stores started re-branding themselves as shopping malls and registering the deli, produce, fish market, etc. as separate businesses which fell under the square footage requirements. Soon after they started doing this, the government caved and overturned the law. I don't see it as breaking the law so much as demonstrating that it can't effectively be enforced.
      - 16y ago

davidw 16y ago

I agree with getting rid of the trade barriers, but dodging them is not a solution and leads to a society where avoiding "inconvenient" laws is seen as the norm. This is very much a slippery slope - and is one of the things I feel is problematic with modern Italy. Berlusconi has been on trial for attempting to corrupt judges, but many people seem not to care - who hasn't tried to skirt around the law, anyway?

Gormo 16y ago
The businessman in the example did not avoid the laws. Far from it - he found a way to comply with them at the lowest possible cost. Deliberately subverting the law should not be commended. But in this example, he was able to work around the deleterious effect of a bad law while fully adhering to its provisions. I can't see a problem with this.
- Retric 16y ago
  The way the law is enforced is not the same thing as what it says. Let's say he shipped one shoe out of a pair to the country and it's worth 10c. Then he ships the second shoe in the set and it's now worth 10$ because the first one is already in the country.
  - Gormo 16y ago
    Do customs duties ever apply to the resale price of merchandise after it has been imported and made available on the local market? Do they apply to the market value of finished goods when importing their unfinished components? The way the law is enforced is very much a function of what it says. I'm fairly confident in assuming that the customs authority didn't arbitrarily make up the "auction goods with duties unpaid for 30 days" rule, and that it was fully rooted in applicable law.
    - Retric 16y ago
      First off, I don't know Indian law, but normally import tax is based on wholesale value. AKA One ton of steel is worth X, pay Y% of X. Now, there are plenty of loopholes in the law but, just as you can get a speeding ticket while traveling below the posted speed limit in a blizzard the basic rules are usually still enforceable. The law may go to great detail about what how and why to post a given speed limit, but they are only guidelines. EX: A friend was given a speeding ticket by a cop who did not know how fast he was going AND did not know what the speeding limit was on that road. However, the Judge decided that the cop as an expert witness and he had to pay the fine. PS: You often see the same sorts of things in IRS audits, because you don’t get to just follow 95% of the rules.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
confuzatron 16y ago
I have to disagree. If an official puts up a barrier and tells you to pay him to pass through it, but you can easily walk round the barrier, do so. It's his job to make the barrier more difficult to get round. I would say that there ought to be no expectation that people should meekly adhere to the spirit of stupid laws. If officialdom wants to implement stupid laws, let them at least make the effort to do it properly :) @davidw "To do otherwise leads to corruption and disdain for the rule of law." Maybe, but bad laws do that too. In the real world, people want to get things done rather than go into politics to replace the eedjits that are stopping them.
- davidw 16y ago
  The proper thing in a democracy is not to meekly accept stupid laws, but to abolish them. To do otherwise leads to corruption and disdain for the rule of law. You can hit the 'reply' link to reply to comments. In reply to your observation that people "just want to get stuff done" - great, they can elect politicians who will try and make it possible to do so. Otherwise, they should obey the law. It's there (or should be) so that one person's "getting stuff done" doesn't impinge on the rights of other people, or society as a whole. Clearly, people have different ideas about what laws are just and so on, but just ignoring whatever laws don't suit your fancy is not a recipe for a healthy place to live.
  - paulgb 16y ago
    Sometimes finding ways to skirt those laws can be a more effective way of having them abolished. Case in point, the province of Nova Scotia was one of the last places in North America to ban shopping on Sundays. An exception was made for stores under a certain square-footage. After unsuccessfully lobbying the government to overturn the ban, the major grocery stores started re-branding themselves as shopping malls and registering the deli, produce, fish market, etc. as separate businesses which fell under the square footage requirements. Soon after they started doing this, the government caved and overturned the law. I don't see it as breaking the law so much as demonstrating that it can't effectively be enforced.
    - 16y ago