Who should pay? | Imamother

amother

Tangerine

Sun, Mar 14 2021, 6:07 pm

I would think mom should pay for it.
She was sending a gift. Let's say the tax was on 70 dollars. She would have paid it. She didn't know about the tax either way. If she knew, she would not have sent the $1 gift to sister B. So it's on her for agreeing.

Its not sister B's responsibility to know how much the gift was. .Maybe the gift was $45, maybe it was $105. Why would she think her $1 thing would make the difference??.

But the assumption is that mom wanted to send the gift to sister A and would have happily paid the tax, had there been one. And sister B's addon would not have made a difference.

Plus, whenever you ship something, they tell you up front what the cost is. Mom should have seen the price go up when she added the $1 gift. Or at least read the fine print. (Not sure how it works but I assume she was notified. You can't just spring a new charge on at the end. )

Those are my thoughts. But I'm gonna ask ds and dh when they get home.

amother

Tangerine

Sun, Mar 14 2021, 6:22 pm

DS said mom pays.
Mom accepted responsibility to send gift. She should have realized the price before she shipped it.
Sister A for sure shouldn't pay- she is receiving a gift.
Sister B is not responsible for a tax on something that mom wants to send.

He added one more thing: apologies have no bearing on anything here.

amother

Coral

Sun, Mar 14 2021, 6:26 pm

amother [ Tangerine ] wrote:

Actually in Israel vat is often only calculated when it reaches Israel so it's not crazy that the mother wasn't told at checkout.
I've had that happen to me.

amother

Tangerine

Sun, Mar 14 2021, 6:31 pm

amother [ Coral ] wrote:

Actually in Israel vat is often only calculated when it reaches Israel so it's not crazy that the mother wasn't told at checkout.
I've had that happen to me.

Ok. But let's assume the gift was $80, and there was no sister B. The gift reaches Israel and they are informed there is a $17% tax. Would mom have paid for it? Presumably yes. She would not have wanted to burden sister A to pay a tax on a gift she received.

Mom had no idea about the threshold for the tax. Hence, the price for the gift was not on her radar. If it was, she would not have accepted sister B's request.

Sister B is not required to make these calculations. Mom could say yes or no. Sister B asked for a favor, mom agreed. So Mom has to pay.

amother

Tangerine

Sun, Mar 14 2021, 6:35 pm

By the way, for those of you who like these types of Choshen Mishpat questions, there is a fascinating book of stories where they present a scenario and at the end, there is a question, like who pays?
Its called the Lost Scotch. I think the author is Rabbi Avrohom Bookman.
At the back of the book are the answers and the relevant sources and reasoning explaining the answers. There are 2 books in the series.