Editorial policy

What Seller Rules is, and is not

Seller Rules reports government actions that affect online sellers. It is an information service. It is not legal, customs, tax, or financial advice, and nothing in it creates a professional relationship with a reader. Whether and how a rule applies to a particular business is a question for that business’s licensed customs broker, lawyer, or accountant.

The wall between the document and our reading of it

Every item has two kinds of text, and the site labels them.

• The document’s words. Quoted sentences, shown in the yellow highlight, copied verbatim from the government document and linked to it. Software checks that each quoted sentence exists in the live document before an issue goes out and again on demand. Figures in the “What it costs” line are the document’s figures, or one total shown with its arithmetic.
• Our reading. The headline, the summary, “Who does this affect?”, “What it costs”, and “What to check” are Seller Rules’ interpretation of the document. They are written to be useful and checked for consistency with the quotes, but they are not the document and they are not advice.

The verification count (“N of N quoted sentences found”) refers only to the first kind. It is never phrased as “claims verified”, because the interpretation is not what the software checks.

How the “What to check” line is written

• It names what to look at and whom to ask: confirm with your broker, check the classification your broker filed, read the annex before assuming an exemption.
• It does not instruct a business to do or stop doing something as a matter of compliance. Where a document sets a requirement, the line says what the document requires and points to it.
• It may cite a standard or regulation the document itself does not name only when the citation is registered with the government page that establishes it.
• Dates, rates, and amounts are the document’s. “Proposed” stays “proposed”. Nothing is rounded up to a certainty the document does not state.

Corrections

An error in a quote, figure, or date is corrected on the page and noted in the next issue with what changed. Reader corrections go to sam@sellerrules.com and are answered.

Sponsors and affiliates

• Sponsors, if any, buy a placement that is labeled as sponsored wherever it appears.
• Sponsors do not see issues before they are sent, do not choose or veto what is covered, and do not influence what the summary, cost line, or what-to-check line says.
• No item is written, softened, or omitted because of a sponsor or an affiliate relationship. Affiliate links, if used, are disclosed at the link.
• Subscriber addresses are never given to sponsors.

Who publishes

Seller Rules is written under the pen name Sam. The publisher is identified by the contact address sam@sellerrules.com and the postal address in every email. When a business entity is formed to own the publication, this policy and the terms will name it. More on the about page.