Make everything duty-free
By Eamonn on Globalization - Adam Smith blog
Coleen McLoughlin, the teenage girlfriend of the £27m Manchester United football star, has been in trouble with the authorities. Returning to Manchester from a trip to New York, Cusoms officials found she had £40,000-worth of undeclared designer clothes and jewellery in her bag. She said she was "entirely unaware" that she had to pay import duty on valuables over a total value of £145.
Any why should she be? Charging tourists, even rich ones, for the items they carry in from abroad, makes no sense at all. It's a nice little earner for the Treasury, of course. But it has very little rationale. And since every country has its own different rules, confusion abounds.
We should scrap all import duties, and demand that other countries do the same. It's time to cut through the tedious horse-trading of the WTO talks. If tourists can buy better, more fashionable, or cheaper clothes and jewellery elsewhere, why shouldn't they bring them in? It might encourage our own producers to do better.
If you're worried about drugs coming in then hire sniffer dogs, but let's give airport Customs officials early retirement.
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