WASHINGTON — Footwear makers and retailers are trying to stomp out a Depression-era U.S. government shoe tax, a move they say could save American consumers hundreds of millions of dollars annually and kick-start relatively flat footwear sales.
Trade associations and their members, such as Payless ShoeSource, Nike Inc. and Columbia Sportswear Co., have been lobbying U.S. lawmakers weekly since the summer to get them to exempt certain categories of footwear — including all children’s shoes — from import tariffs that can run as high as 67.5 percent a pair.
The groups created a website — — to raise awareness and encourage constituents to tell their lawmakers, via an e-mail prompt on the site, to pass the Affordable Footwear Act of 2007.
While the matter appears to have widespread industry support, its relative obscurity and low-level priority make passage of the bill anything but a shoe-in, several supporters say.
Imposed in the 1930s, the tariffs were designed to protect a domestic manufacturing industry from cheap imports. But that industry has largely disappeared over the past 20 years, as manufacturing overseas has become easier and cheaper.
“It’s an anachronism,” Peter T. Mangione, president of the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America, said of the tariffs. “It’s just completely out of sync with what we need today.”
Of the 2.4 billion pairs of shoes Americans bought in 2006, nearly 99 percent were made overseas.
