De minimis

[1][2] Queen Christina of Sweden (r. 1633–1654) favoured the similar Latin adage, aquila non capit muscās (the eagle does not catch flies).

[3] The legal history of de minimis dates back to the 15th century in the civil law, although there are earlier antecedents.

[8] The general term has come to have a variety of specialized meanings in various contexts as shown below, which indicate that beneath a certain low level a quantity is regarded as trivial, and treated commensurately.

[9] Under Internal Revenue Service guidelines, the de minimis rule can also apply to any benefit, property, or service provided to an employee that has so little value that reporting for it would be unreasonable or administratively impracticable; for example, use of a company photocopier to copy personal documents – see de minimis fringe benefit.

These inconsistencies have led to repeated attempts to pass the so-called Mobile Workforce State Income Tax Simplification Act[12] without success.

If a business receives more than the de minimis ceiling amount of aid, it is subject to a different set of regulations.

Having criminal remedies in place is seen as a "last resort" since such actions often infringe personal liberties – incarceration, for example, prevents the freedom of movement.

Most crimes of direct action (murder, rape, assault, for example) are generally not affected by such a stance, but do require greater justification in less clear cases.

For a charge of second degree murder, the test being: "could the jury reasonably conclude that accused actions were a contributing cause, beyond de minimis, of the victim's death.

Courts will occasionally not uphold a claim to copyright on modified public domain material if the changes are deemed to be de minimis.

For example, the NBA 2K video games that included copyrighted tattoos in the recreation of the players' likenesses were found to be in de minimis and not copyright-violating.

The important issue is that whether de minimis principle could be used as separate defence than fair use under section 52 of Indian Copyright Act.

[28] In September 2024, the U.S. took executive action following an "exponential" increase in the number of de minimis shipments over the previous decade, from approximately 140 million to over one billion a year.

[28][30][29] The surge in de minimis shipments was largely attributed to e-commerce platforms, particularly those based in China such as Shein and Temu, which ship directly to U.S.

[29][31] Shein and Temu are likely responsible for more than 30% of all packages shipped to the U.S. daily under the de minimis provision, and their shipments could be greatly reduced since Section 301 tariffs cover approximately 70% of textile and apparel imports from China.

A de minimis threshold is a value set by a country to apply customs duty and tax rates on imported goods.

F. W. Upham used the term when speaking of "the [...] minor differences that make up the larger part of the current argument against the Gospels.