Every good purchased online from overseas from July 1, 2017 onwards, will have the GST attached, following an agreement Friday between State and Federal Treasurers.
Full Details Here
Thoughts?
I personally wonder how they are going to handle those one cent crap we manage to find.
Thanks for answering seriously @DeafMutePretender. I expected I'd get trolled hard.
There is definitely something about people being too comfortable here to care, But I think It's also a cultural thing.
Something like this will affect every individual in the country, so I don't see too many conflicting interests (Not talking about retail business owners).
2017.. Surely the current government will be out by then ?
Don't bet it on it. George Bush (the American version of Tones) managed to get in twice. Let's hope Tone doesn't get his own miracle 9/11 or Children Overboard. He's going to pull that "alert but not alarmed" national security bullshit again. And it will work again. Right-wing conservative governments: it's like clockwork.
its obvious, Usually most of the protests are supported by the lobbies or political groups. We are just bargain hunters!
we must create a Bargainer lobby for our self in the parliament
As this will deter overseas online shopping, does this mean local goods pricing will fall due to increased sales and revenue from local shops?
It's likely do the opposite imo, since the price of the substitute increased, local shops have less incentives to sell them cheap.
Although, realistically the people who price compare online to overseas and those that just head to Harvey Norman are two different types of customers. Since the former will still probably continue to buy from overseas, the change is likely to be minimal.
Yeah, probably. That said, the changes are not likely to be any good for us for sure. People who buy from overseas will be less likely to buy from abroad, because of the tax and the fees associated with it.
That said, I am fine with 10% tax, if it adds additional administration fees, I am questioning the reasons behind it.
Hard to say…
cos Dicksmith etc only mainly competes with other local stores like harvery norman, jb hifi etc..
I don't think much ppl were able to pricematch an overseas online store with the local store…
====
The main issue for price increase/decrease is australian dollar dropping
This is pretty standard elsewhere in the world. In the UK the delivery company collects the import duties, which is both an import fee and the tax on top. Sometimes they collect on delivery, other companies send a bill. So the overseas company has nothing to do with it.
They have a small duty free allowance which is enough for DVDs etc, a little higher for gifts.
The government is talking about GST on everything (i.e. dropping the threshold to $0) though.
Yes I read the articles, just mentioning how it works elsewhere.
GST on everything seems very unfair… Grandma sends the kids a small birthday gift and we have to slap on GST (and goodness knows what other costs) on top. They should have kept small things GST free really in my view.
As many ppl have said, the 10% GST is not the issue here, but rather the disproportionate administrative costs (which will have to be borne by either the consumer, retailer or the government).
That's why other places have a small tax free allowance, so a $20 item does not have to be processed.
which will have to be borne by either the consumer, retailer or the government
Most likely by the overseas retailer. By the way, almost all the local retailers are already "bearing the burden" of GST administration here and with the accounting & logistic software these days it's actually not that hard.
You're assuming every overseas businesses are able and willing to subject themselves to our tax administration requirement. Ppl don't just buy from big companies like Amazon you know.
@Love a bargain: I am assuming a reasonable overseas business would be willing to cooperate with foreign government to streamline the transaction. Who knows what will happen if an overseas merchant failed to collect GST on behalf of ATO? My speculation would be that the tax + fee will be collected at custom, which makes it inconvenient and more expensive to the customers.
@scotty: Or the overseas merchant will collect the GST, absorb the processing fees and pass it onto the customers via hiked prices — they already use geoblocking to alter prices on many overseas sites. They could just as easily exclude purchases under a given price from being available to Australians, where the fees are greater than the item value — you can see that principle used in local shops here wherever you try to use card transactions (although in that form its typically a GST avoidance technique rather than genuinely passing on costs to consumers).
Spelling mistake in title
GST Threshold Will Be Zero Form July 2017
Form = From
Please fix this.
How will this affect ebay purchases?
-overseas
-local
Other online only seller like
-Kogan
-COTD
Local sellers with online selling via their own website and ebay
-Dicksmith
-JB hifi
-etc..
Those local online retailers already attached GST on your purchases. For overseas, like Scotty mentioned above will need to apply GST to streamlined the transaction thus you getting the post item faster and won't get custom handling fee.
I doubt items would get posted any faster.
Sorry, what I was meant the item is posted as its standard processing time, but not slower.
While I dislike taxes, I don't think it's unfair. Many other countries do collect GSTs on foreign purchases.
That said, if the tax incurs more cost than what it collects (which I remember was the reason why we didn't have GST on foreign purchases), then what's the point?
It seems the point is not about being fair or raising revenue but to protect businesses from international competition (and allow them charge us more just because they can) by making overseas purchases prohibitively expensive.
From the AFR article:
Mr Hockey said tax officials will "travel around the world" visiting companies with turnovers in Australia of greater than $75,000 to ensure they collect and forward to the government GST.
Basically for an Australian business if your annual turnovers is greater than $75,000 you have to register for GST and do quarterly/annual BAS. If your annual turnover is less than $75,000 then you do not have to register for GST and your customers do not have to pay GST included price.
So it sounds like
If you are an overseas merchant that sell more than $75k to Australians, you'll need to add 10% to your price, do your BAS-equivalent and collect tax on behalf of Australian government.
If you are a small overseas merchant, then you might not even need to add GST to your price for your Australian customers.
Anyway that's just my speculation. Nor is it clear with the penalty if a merchant failed to collect GST — maybe the GST + custom fee will be collected at custom instead.
Yeah sure I can see all those Chinese eBay sellers (doing well above $75k/year in Australia) registering for GST, doing their BAS and remitting the money to the Australian Government. What if they collect the 10% and fail to remit the money… will Tony send the Army to enforce collection? What a load of crap!
I can see those ebay sellers trying to rip us off by claiming GST in the price
then they just keep it for themselves
It will be eBay not the sellers who formalize it. The system will pick up your Australian address, and add 10% at checkout.
Nope - sellers would only be liable for GST if they sell > $75k to Australian customers. How is eBay going to asses that?
Also eBay is simply providing a platform / service, they do not invoice the buyer - the invoice is issued by the seller not by eBay - the seller is the entity that needs to register for GST (in Joe's dreams at least…)
Truly this is simply political BS - impossible to enforce - the only way to do it would be to lower the GST threshold on imports from the current $1k to say $300 and enforce that at customs level when the goods enter Australia.
@bauser99:
Actually, ebay might be happy to collect the $$$. Its like an interest free loan for three months.
@bauser99
In practice, eBay will almost certain be liable for putting in the platform to collect it.
eBay is certainly the elephant in the room when it comes to who will be impacted by this new legislation and it would be very surprising if this was not the case.
I would imagine there would be an automatic counter for >$75k of value for eBay sellers to AU which would at least hit the bigger sellers.
I dont know if i agree. Ebay is an agent for the seller in many ways, they take a percentage of the sale just like a credit card provider does. If you can claim against the card provbider when a tx fails to deliver then the same is true of EB.
So to determine the threshold, will every business that ships to Aust have to send their financials to Canberra?
Or will customs keep a tally and once they hit the $75k threshold, they'll start slapping on duty?
As someone mentioned above, I've got no issue paying tax/GST, but I see no way they could hope to police this (other then the big players like Amazon, etc) without the costs far exceeding the gains. And for that reason, like other, I only see this an anti-competitive measure so the likes of Gerry Harvey can continue to overcharge for his crap.
Gerry Harvey is having a wet dream right now
Harvey has friends in high places.
We need to put this guy out of business once and for all to teach him a lesson.
I'm buggered if I can work out why people go to his shops. I certainly won't.
Because of his bleating, he's going to cause untold pain on millions of Australians, and we are just letting him get away with it.
Everyone complains about him, but no-one will do anything about him. Why??
Harvey has Liberal friends in high places.
(you forgot an important word in your post)
@UFO:
and you have evidence that he doesn't bribe the other mob as well???
But yes, maybe I should have specified Liberal.
Not bribe, it is called a political donation by a lobbyist. The lobbyist are certainly on the winning side lately.
So would ebay.com or uk be collecting the tax on behalf of sellers, and forward to ATO?
WOW op did you really link a source that asks me to subscribe for money??
I didn't even realise there was a paywall with AdBlock Plus until you mentioned something
I don't know anymore all these silly laws and mismanagement from all political parties makes me not want to live in Australia anymore. And to think 5 years ago I didn't want to move overseas, and imagined myself going through uni and settling down with a nice girl and having 2.5 kids all in Australia without question…
How many Ozbargainers voted for Tony ?
This government has done nothing good.
Broken NBN
Netflix, Steam tax
GST on overseas purchases
Data retention
Blocking piracy sites
Carbon tax abolition
Lost count of the rest..
Well he did stop the boats.. from appearing in the media at least.
As long as he calls everything Labor has done as "Tax" and any tax he slaps on as a "reform", a lot of Australian sheeple seem to like him :|
You forgot these stuff ups as well:
I wont reduce the ABC funding. Lie.
I wont reduce health funding. Lie.
I wont touch the pension. Lie.
I wont reduce education funding or deregulate fees. Lie.
I will bring in the most generous Paid Parental Leave system Australia has ever seen. Lie… and now I'm going to take some of the existing payments away too.
I basically said anything I could to win votes and get into office, and have renegged on pretty much every single policy I promised to you. I am the biggest hypocrite the Australian Public has ever seen, because I roasted "Juliar" over one broken promise (and I've broken many many more).
One Term Tony (100% sure he will NEVER be re-elected)
That's what happens when you pee off the young, the old, the sick, and the poor. Doesnt leave much of the population left.
How many OzBargainers, Redditors, Whirlpoolers, etc voted for Tony?
They were out in force during the election period but for the most part, they now seem conspicuously absent now that Tone's many failures have come into fruition.
Well I know I didnt vote for the monkey!!!
Na, 4 years with a cute little monkey as PM would have been just as productive as all this extreme reform that is going nowhere and a waste of money.
I am though hoping we can re establish our democracy where the pollies represent the will of the people before we go too far down the road of the police state.
Only problem is the debt hasn't reduced under Coalition government it is getting bigger faster.
Actually, it was the middle class tax cuts from Howard which have largely screwed our income, not to mention governments putting all their eggs into the mining basket at the expense of all else.
Sorry to say mate, its generally Labor which has to play "catch up to the rest of the world" each time they come into government while the Coalition does its very best to protect mining, churches, media barons and the top 1%.
drinking the liberal party kool aid i see
Only those in the electoral of Warringah, ie Sydney northern beaches?
I did vote for the Liberal candidate of my electoral but he didn't get elected, however I can see how all the Liberal voters are going to be demonised on the public internet because of the under performing current government, as though having Rudd at the helm things would be much better.
At least it wouldn't have been worst and we wouldn't get the current crap policies and "reforms" that we do now.
The liberals are known to only have interest in protecting big business and themselves.
What have liberals done since election
-Cripple the NBN to what would be considered the lowest minimal speed (this will have implications for future technologies)
-Tried to make sick people pay for the co-payment
-Trying to increase the GST (they are not official yet, but they are testing the waters with constant GST suggestions)
-Netflix, Steam tax
-Blocking piracy sites
-Carbon tax abolition
-No marriage equality
-School reforms GONSKI
-Not believe in climate change or doing anything about it
-Browyn bishop travel allowance rorts
-And current GST on all online overseas purchases
Not to mention
-Abbot's daughter getting a free scholarship over other more needy people.
Basically entitlements is okay if it is for the liberals or their families.
But for everyone else, "Entitlements must end".
except it won't work
and probably would just end up with companies trying to extort lot's of money from individuals.
The way to compete against piracy is to give ppl
-lower price
-immediate access.
By slapping on a netflix tax, it just increases the price for ppl.
@tomkun01:Not really.. I am not paying for horrible movies to watch them at the movies. The new fantastic four is a good example..
@Ryxxi: All of the new Marvel movies look shitehouse from the trailers. When you go to see them, you're encouraging Hollywood to make more generic movies like that. Just don't go…
The Liberals also tried to make university students have an even bigger debt while Tony's daughter gets a scholarship.
The slippery slime in the Liberals got a free education and are still trying to make things worse for the everyday Australian.
Thank goodness just enough people had the sense to vote again the lying Liberals or it would be much worse.
@tomkun01: I stopped going to marvel movies after avengers 2. Jurassic park and terminator genysis were my last two at Hoyts.
you have to be a special kind of crazy to still support Abbott. Over 800,000 Australians unemployed for first time in 20yrs, doubled deficit, debt up around $200bn, economic growth in a state of malaise. Not to mention the complete refusal to accept that green energy innovation and investment creates jobs and growth.
and no support for equal marriage cos of some discussion Abbot had years ago while in uni
It's so funny that his sister is gay, yet he has such a closed mind.
Like I said ppl who vote for Liberals are
-big business
-people who own a business
-rich people
-people who are financially much better off than the majority of the population
oh mate don't even get me started on his social policy! Such an embarrassment.
If you watch the Bolt report, you see how deluded the Liberals are
Mention any topics about
-climate change
-marriage equality
-attacks on abbot
-any pro liberals topics
And andrew bolt, doesn't want anyone speaking when they have views that are not in lined with him
or hurts abbot.
He always disregards their statement or shut them up when it goes against his Liberal views.
Topics he likes
-Attack unions
-reforms to welfare
It's quite entertaining to watch.
Im self employed and vote Green.
@Tyler And dumb people that are told how to think by shock jocks and the media.
-people who own a business
I own a business and i am offended you put me in the category.
Ok so I did benefit because this years Budget gave business owners some perks but I did not vote this man in.
I loved john howard back in his day. He was a good PM but tony abbott and Joe hockey are clowns.
Like I said ppl who vote for Liberals are
-big business
-people who own a business
-rich people
-people who are financially much better off than the majority of the population
You forgot one very important demographic Edward: old people.
In multiple surveys, the old people group (65+) always have the highest percentage of support for the Liberal Government/Tones Abbott compared to other age groups.
Well old people tend to listen to 2GB, 2UE, alan jones, steve price, and Andrew bolt etc.
And those guys are very liberal and very vocal on their own shows..
It's funny if old people group (65+) did vote him in, since his medicare co-payment plan would probably hurt them the most.
You might be an outlier/exception.
But I find that majority of business owners tend to support Liberals.
And also business owners tend to run as a Liberal candidates in their electorate.
It would be brilliant to see the end of Abbott, but likely as it seems from the media and public polls, if the Coalition looses the next election in 2016, it would be the first time since 1929 (Scullin) that a party has lost office after a single term. The Coalition (LP-LNP-NP-CLP) MPs and senators (123?) vote for the party leader / Prime Minister. We, the people, merely vote for the party.
As I understand it, the Liebral voter demographics are just as you stated, but the rest of the Coalition parties have the strength in WA and particularly in QLD, with a strong Mining / Agrarian focus — this fact is missed by the predominantly ALP voters in Melbourne and Sydney. No doubt the landscape for miners and farmers has rapidly changed in recent years and within a generation those industries will be unrecognizable — the Coalition support in WA and QLD may wither and die, which will kill off the Liebrals once and for good.
Dont worry about past stats. Abbott has the unique credentials to surpass any past trends.
Australia's most unpopular PM. Ever.
Has broken more promises in office than any other leader in memory.
Puts his religious beliefs above the will of the people.
Denies the scientific proof about climate change and still insists that coal is the way of the future.
To have such a leader of a party is too much of a handicap to overcome. Liberal Party is going to get smashed.
They've annoyed the young, the old, the sick, the poor. Doesnt leave much of the population left :).
@UFO:
They've annoyed the young, the old, the sick, the poor. Doesnt leave much of the population left :).
Reliably enough, the only group of people the Liberal party has not annoyed are rich people/big business. Can the voters (the great unwashed, yet many in number) overcome the influence and persuasiveness of the elite? That remains to be seen.
You realise our population has gone up 50% in the last 20 years? Not sure how citing unemployment as a total over such a long time span is an intelligent metric.
And look at SA. Labor in power for the past 15 years and we have the highest unemployment rate in the country! Go figure.
Don't forget the "tampoon tax"
Someone is a labor stooge…
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Will this affect the TRS in any way?
They're completely different things, this is about goods going out. I doubt they'll mess with TRS, going by the number of Asian tourists queueing up to get tax refunds on jewellery etc. The net benefit to Australia from the cashed up tourists spending money here outstrips the tax loss from tax refunds. And Ozbargainers getting tax refunds on iphones and macbooks are really a small percentage of TRS refunds.
Yes but if you're bringing the goods back after you've claimed TRS, you're currently required to pay back the GST on goods over $900. However, if the threshold is becoming zero then they could very well require you to payback the entire GST on return which would be easier if they just limited TRS to actual tourists rather than Australians who are coming back.
Yes but if you're bringing the goods back after you've claimed TRS, you're currently required to pay back the GST on goods over $900.
That is, if you declare it (supposed to, but a lot of people don't).
However, if the threshold is becoming zero then they could very well require you to payback the entire GST on return which would be easier if they just limited TRS to actual tourists rather than Australians who are coming back.
That doesn't really change anything, a lot of people have visiting friends or relatives who will bring something out of the country, and the Australian can return with it, without box for electronic goods, or wearing the jewellery. Customs aren't going to ask you about every piece of jewellery you're wearing unless they decide to do a random check and previous TRS log comes up with the description of the jewellery you're wearing (which won't happen because the TRS would have been lodged under your friend/relative).
Even if TRS was limited to tourists only, it will change nothing. Unless you log every single item each Australian traveller were to travel with, it will be unrealistic to prove they are bringing an item back which has been TRS-refunded.
Really bad idea. This will cost so much to enforce that most if not all the additional revenue will be lost. And any attempts to reduce enforcement costs will just mean more red tape for business, who could quite potentially just not bother to ship to Australia anymore. Poor policy from this government which goes against basic economic theory, wish they'd focus on addressing the real issues with tax domestically instead of just the buzz issues like this one!
I saw someone talk about this
and they said it won't make much difference for competition
since items
-are still much cheaper overseas
-people also just used to the convenience of online shopping
yeah but 10% can mean a lot for people who are low to middle income earners. if you're in the high earners category then you couldn't give a shit but if you're making like 70K and below then you'll feel it once it begins to add up.
this tax is a basic 'make the rich richer' scheme by enabling them to make up for lost profits over years of online shopping growth in this country.
Yes, what is meant is
that the gst won't do much to get people to shop local again.
So it negates what it meant to do.
The only thing it does is increase revenue for the government.
@tyler.durden: the gov fails to realise this scheme would only work if local retailers pulled their fingers out and addressed some of the reasons people buy overseas to begin with i.e. availability, price, service.
but since the retailers are unwaveringly rigid and unable to progress with the times, they would do well to stop counting their chickens before they hatch
Nearly all my friends vote Liberal. Gives me a bloody headache, because some of them don't care about politics and just vote for whatever their parents vote for and my best friend votes Liberal, because he is a liberal stooge who hates freedom.
You need better friends.
perfectly stated. you only need to look at who controls the media in this country to figure out why dissenting voices don't get heard.