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.
there is still hope that voting works. the greens won a couple Sydney councils
Disgusting attitude.
You are right. I forgot to add the cum!
This is in response to idiots like Gerry Harvey and that Kate Carnell pushing the retailers bull… that retailers are losing money.
Consumers are most likely going to online sellers due to other factors in addition to price. Availability of products is a big one. Sometimes you just cant get what you need in Australia. Secondly big retailers like HN and DS are putting ridiculous markups on their products. Sometimes even 20-30% on top of other retailers. Theyre even more expensive than Myer for IT goods and appliances, and thats saying something.I cant believe that HN and DS still have customers paying their exorbitant prices.
Thus, I have not bought anything from HN in the past 10 years, and only buy OzBairgain deals from DS.
In addition, even with the GST, good will still be cheaper online. So there Gerry stick that up your ….
So, Gerry Harvey et al., stop whinging, and look after the customer, provide goods at a reasonable price, and good customer service, and customers will come to you instead of going online for big (expensive) items rather than risk warranty issues from some retailer overseas.
Gerry Harvey is just thick.
Consumers have been telling him for years what is wrong with his business meaning We are all trying to help him improve his business by pointing them out to him and he ignores all the suggestions and then goes out and blames it on Online shopping.
suddenly, the number of oversea "gifts" into australia explodes.
What do you mean explodes? Do you know that marking it as 'gift' does and means nothing?
If I buy something online and it turns out the seller didn't pay GST, does Joe Hockey set his sights on me or the seller?
whoever is the easier target
I had first hand experience with paying the GST equivalent on an overseas purchase while I lived in the UK. They charge VAT on all parcels coming into the country with value over 10 (15?) pounds. In order to get your parcel, you receive a letter to pay up the 20% VAT, however the kicker is the fees they charge on top to process this cash grab. Basically, the fees are HUGE and can be more than the VAT they are collecting. Simple terms, it's a RORT. It effectively kills any deal, and I guess that is the point. Implementing this, the government seem to want to make minimalists of us all! Because all these money grubbing strategies do is make you question whether you really need the thing in the first place, not rush off to the local shops. Pandering to the retailers like this isn't going to work, people are going to simply close their wallets full stop.
Here is an example of the letters:
http://files.nothingisreal.com/lj/parcelforce_invoice.png
I wonder if the Liberals will outsource the parcel management to a company they are connected to.
That's why this country is in such a mess. More unnecessary jobs for bureaucrats, rather than creating productive jobs that bring export income into Australia.
GST is fine but I am NOT willing to pay administrative costs.
If the government wishes to collect tax on all online purchases, the government should pay all the costs involved.
The government paying = money collected from tax = "taxpayers" money.
I reckon HOCKEY should pay for all the costs involved. It'll be free flights for his friends at first, then this collection scheme will raise taxes as the .. "Online GST Collection Reform"
A week can be a long time in politics. The government is talking about a GST on everything from 1st July 2017 and we have a Federal Election in 2016. I cannot see Tony reaching the next election as party leader, and if they are re-elected, they will raise the GST to 15% or 20% after the election. This idea has already been floated. It is looking more and more like a single term government. A massive defeat would put them in the wilderness for twenty years plus, as Labor once experienced, before Whitlam. Tony is trying to survive day by day, and hoping to push the next election back as far as possible. It is likely to be the latest election ever, just before the Christmas break. If they are defeated soundly, a GST threshold may still be allowed.
I think Turnbull will take over. It will be a new salesman selling the same old dud policies bar a couple. Turnbull was the one that killed the proper NBN and has backed a lot of these rubbish elitist policies.
Turnbull thinks he is an IT expert.
He thinks 25mbps is fast enough, when many other countries/companies consider that is just the minimal speed.
It won't be 20 years in the wilderness, even if it's a 1 term LNP goverment since Shorten can't sell ice to eskimos.
this (profanity) country is retarded.
piracy antics
internet filter
ridiculous cuts on future science
and now this.
country government
Country. Because it's people are the ones who voted in this idiotic govt.
I was thinking that too, it's a combination of both really
I'm fine with it as long as there's no implementation cost. Happy to have 10% added to my orders at checkout.
Haha you are dreaming.
The rorting is in the extra "processing" fee.
It nets the government even more revenue than just a simple GST.
I can hear Gerry Harvey & co laughing hysterically at the background..
Gerry Harvey & co probably had multiple orgasms after hearing the news
I certainly hope he has to pay this 10% on all the imported goods he is bringing over to flog.
Yes, the business would currently pay GST on the value of goods over $1k.
(BUT this is offset against the GST on sales)
Remember what happened to carbon tax,scrapped!This might end up in the same way.
Since its 2017, is there still a chance for someone to turn that policy down?
They were actually saying that if they can make up a good working plan , they will implement this before 2017.
so in answering my question, is there still a chance for someone to turn that policy down? or you not sure
Its has to go through the senate, so there is a possibility that it wont pass. But not sure because most of the stupid laws passed the senate already.
Before the greens would oppose it, but now the new greens leader might negotiate
It's all about negotiating and getting things back in return.
They make it as high as they can to begin with the it gets changed during negotiating.
hopefully the Greens and others in the Senate will have better sense then that.
remember the Democrats who "negotiated" to give us the GST? where are they now?
hopefully the Greens and others in the Senate will have better sense than that.
That is absolute gold.
I'm fine with paying GST but the potential administrative cost for collecting the additional 10% will outrage many consumers. At the end of the day, I know all will be well as the collective power of OZBargainers is stronger than any devious government plan. We will find ways to circumvent this stupid plan!
Someone makes a good point about Gerry Harvey et al, behing the push behind this. Makes me think of just how corrupt the Government is. They were pushing for this for years, and had no leeway til now. Did they line pockets for this to pass? And it seems quite the co-incidence that the piracy reform comes on the heels of Fox kicking up a fuss regarding pirating of GoT among other things, too. It's truly frightening how the huge media and business conglomerates have their hand up the Government's butt.
They say it's for recouping taxes on these overseas companies, but truly the only people getting shafted are going to be Australians, especially low income earners. Are they really going to charge GST on gifts, too? If grandma sends a 200 dollar item, they want you to pay 20? Who is going to pay to send it back when you refuse to collect it?
The worst thing? Big purchases already have a 10% GST on them — anything bought overseas over 1000 AUD incurs GST on collection— this has been in place since the GST was implemented. I was hit by it once. What they should have done is lower it to $500 or something.
It feels like they're desperately trying to keep things 'as they are' by implementing these stop-gap laws to force people to act like they want them to act, to minimize globalization, to reverse free trading, to control the media. They won't succeed, though. Globalization is happening — the only way to change is to get with it, not force everyone backwards. It won't work anyway.
There's a lot of other secret shit that is happening that we don't know about
especially to do with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP)
Yes the Trans Pacific Partnership could be a lot more devastating. And to think we are trusting the Liberals on that.
Hush hush. Secret secret.
I hope they also subtract the country of origin tax at the same time. Shouldn't be paying 20%+10% for uk goods for example
I am pretty sure that the next change will be 20% GST because we gotta copy The UK and most of these changes have been copying others, at least that's what their reasoning is.
well you gotta pay both countries tax if you want cross border products..
This will basically reduce competition from overseas markets, increasing our domestic prices, it will have no effect on international purchases other than delaying their receipt.
With the buzz this is generating I'm wondering if this is just a stunt to distract us from something else. Like these laws that keep getting snuck out to restrict free speech.
Tony may just solve all his problems by making it illegal to vote Labour/Greens while we are distracted.
I think Tony would if he could. Sadly all he needs to do is use slogans and fear and the public vote for him anyway.
So, is ebay going to be paying some form of tax on the income it receives from sellers fees and listing fees and fees on postage costs?
This regime will be effective for large online retailers like Amazon or eBay (eBay can add 10% to any purchase if the buyer is in Australia and seller is international). I would bet most Australians who buy overseas buy through just a handful of web sites.
Still, it won't catch those ordering direct from smaller online retailers.
On one hand you complain Aussies are losing competitive advantages and jobs, on the other hand you are supporting companies like Kogan beating domestic business due to the bias in tax.
I don't support people who are bad at what they do. If you aren't the best, then stop whinging about how someone can do a better job than you, and for cheaper, then cry "Support Australian Jobs". Clearly if you do that, you aren't the most efficient or effective.
What competitive advantage do Australian Retail provide? The only thing I can think of is warranty, where the failure rates of a product is significant, clearly there is a demand for local warranty (think local stock vs grey stock on OzB deals), smart consumers are willing to pay for this. Kogan is able to beat domestic business because they're efficient. This is a GOOD thing, provides competition. The other "competitive advantage" there is in retail would be service. However for shoppers doing their own research, this is unneeded, also take a good look around you in "bricks and mortar" stores. How many times has anyone ever gone above and beyond?
LOOK at the amount of computer shops in Australia, they have ADAPTED. Their prices are close to Amazon prices +15/20%, which is fair enough due to GST, and yet the retailers (ShoppingExpress, PCByte) are able to beat the Amazon prices as well.
I will support Australian jobs if it is deserved, but I'm not going to pay more so that someone can keep their job. I'm a consumer, not a boss. If I was a boss I'd have fired them for being useless and bad work ethic, crying foul (Hi Gerry Harvey) because someone is better than you.
And to those who think this may be too trivial and costly to implement, please think about legal enforcement, should we let go of small crimes for the same reason?
It's not a crime because it's not a law. This is just an attempt for cash grabbing by Hockey. Due to the large difference in price and variety (competitive advantage that online shopping has, the diff in price will be slightly decreased), consumers will STILL shop online. What does this mean? Your beloved Australian jobs will still be unaffected and the Government will get a small amount of revenue.
What does this tell you? Hockey is desperate for money/score some free flights, now that his cronies are getting caught for helicopter rides, he needs a few reforms to make sure travel plans aren't affected.
Watch what happens after this tax is introduced.
Retailers will get even more lazy and will still be incompetent and inefficient. But they expect us to pay more still.
Where's the value addon service? Where's the advantage of buying local? How about playing the fair game for consumers?
to make it all fair then perhaps we should start charging a tax, I meant "reform" to businesses who offshore their jobs?
I am all for protecting local jobs, but the last couple of times my job was offshored, I certainly did not recall any retailers showing any support for me, so these days, as far as I am concerned, it is every man for himself.
I certainly hope whoever voted this moronic govt who only serves the big end of town feels proud of yourselves. And NO if you think I mean you should vote labor automatically from this comment, then you are clueless.
I will be boycotting Harvey Norman in particular after this, as I know that guy was the driving force behind all this.
Bring back the NBN and remove this stupid tax.
Bet no party will do as they promise.
Government will not do anything with negative gearing because they are relying on stamp duties as a major source of income.
Can't fix the retailers and price gouging, shift the problem to consumers paying more tax. Bloody idiots!
Bring back the NBN and remove this stupid tax.
Not going to happen until the aging population of Australia starts to die out. They all vote for who they know, not what they do. Look at Bennelong, the seat is taken by John Alexander, because of his popularity as a former tennis player.
Just look at his speeches.. what do they contribute to? John Alexander just reads his speeches (properly not even written by him) on national days of remembrance.
John Alexander in Parliament
Now look at the Labor candidate, Yat Sen Li
Anyone remember Jaymes Diaz? The liberal candidate who just uses buzzwords and had no idea?
He got a whooping 40% of the votes in his electorate!
Practically no Austalian politician writes his own speeches. ALan Jones the bathroom inspector who used to work on the radio was a speech writer for a bunch of Lib prime ministers.
YES! Lets all boycott d….head Gerry Harvey . Then he would see that we are not all idiots.
As opposed to Labor who gives money away to bludgers and rorters.
So you read my 2nd sentence?
Well i cut the crap and got straight to the point.;b
Local retailers complain and still can't compete. Government listens and protect them using this tariff. Similar like car manufacturing.
Seriously stupid. Do they realise even intangible stuff like software games and licensing got price gouging here? They didn't win any battle over that? Does that mean we will get taxed on intangible goods too? How the heck they can track it.
Gov can't fix the economy and out of funds now wants a piece from Netflix and online shopping.
Aus is getting worse and worse
Can't believe this has passed. It doesn't stop people from buying overseas, it only generates revenue for the government without any positive impact to retailers.
If you wanna import do it before then.
$0? will they ask if my grandma's letter or postcard in an envelope from overseas has been collected $0.0000001 GST for the Australian government?
Hard to believe need to pay GST or get held up for a $1 screen protector that the local retailers dont seem to stock any for those less popular smart phone models.
Just wait when you find if it will be the 'user pays' system like the UK. The fee collected for that screen protector would be 10cents PLUS $12 (or other random extortion fee) processing fee.
There's next to no chance anyone but us tax payers will be paying for the overheads incurred policing this system.
Issue here is many things are not available here.
Only two solutions…
1) overseas shop declare as a gift.
2) save the money, go for overseas trip with an empty suitcase, stuff it with everything you can get.
I wait until the day they charge GST on your personal belongings when you come back overseas
What happens if it is declared as a gift? you can avoid paying GST&Duties???
It won't work that way. I was caught receiving gifts from overseas friends contained 3 shirts with 2 diff sizes and ended up hit by import tax and processing fees back to those days before GST. They will do the same now but only include another 10% regardless if you declare it as a gift.
I know it doesnt work that way. I was just asking neonlight why they thought that having a gift is exempt? It's not 2008 anymore.
The law was changed since then so that "GIFT" means sfa in regards to value.
A lot of mis information
Well yes, back then gift with declared low value should not have tax on it. Now not sure I'm only suggesting ideas.
You see if your friend overseas send you something does that mean you get taxed on it? It is difficult to distinguish which is gift and which is an online purchase. Eg some eBay seller packaging shows a personal address,and tick gift on several of my purchases. They are of low value under $10
@neonlight: they don't care. All they want is an excuse to stop any goods coming into the country other than from the distributors and to retailers. No Australian should live in Australia without buying anything from Australian retailers.
The funny hting is none of those package forms ever has a box for Purchase, even the Australian one. Its only gift , sample, documents and i cant remember the last . Im guessing these are some international form as they all share the same basic mistake, no PURCHASED PRODUCT box.
So technically even Australians cant declare they are sending "products" from a purhcase overseas.
So what does this mean for people travelling from overseas. If you buy literally anything from overseas (see chewing gum, clothes, misc souvenirs) and bring it back you are theoretically required to pay GST? If this is enforced then the lines at customs are going to be epic
Think of all the GST they are going to need to collect at the airport for Bintang singlets!!!!!
If the purchase was made overseas you do not pay GST when you arrive back in Australia. The government is talking about paying GST on purchase made in Australia online.
I don't believe they have made that distinction yet based on what i've read in the last couple of days. The GST threshold has always been enforced regardless of where you were when you purchased the goods. If you were to return from overseas today you would see a question on the card about whether you had purchased goods from more than $1,000 (it might even say $900)
The current legislation in regards to the GST threshold is about goods coming in from overseas and money going out to overseas.
Under your theory travellers returning from overseas will also need to disclose what they have eaten and drinking as some of these will attract GST as they do today.
The government will only be interest in what you are purchasing online in Australia not what you buy overseas. It's the threshold that is changing not the tax system.
Not at all, what i have said is that they will need to disclose what they have brought with them across the border. Obviously fresh food and those foods which don't attract GST don't and won't apply
That doesnt make sense, if you buy from clever dick smith, they already charge you GST :)
Don't forget that Aussies were paying a premium when the AUD was high just because we live in Australia. Now the AUD has dropped considerably, we are still getting great deals on Amazon etc… So we might not end up paying the full 10% if its in the companies interest to have Aussie customers.
It's the bloody Aussie tax. It's going too far. Can't fix economy, just take money collect more tax.
Seriously rubbish government.
We paid enough tax already with GST and high taxable income. While Medicare levy gets screwed, public medical service failing, house price going up, living cost going up, pensioner age extended, NOT GOOD
People just wanna save some money buying stuff online and even that government wants a piece of pie.
On the surface saying playing fair game but in reality it's just an excuse
Blame the Australian dollar for giving overseas investors in the Australian home market a 30% gain in the last twoish years.
Seriously the gov should tax all home sales at something like 20% regardless of whether you buy again. THat would kill the selling market.
I wish S92 of our constitution covered international commerce as well….that would make Gerry and Dick squeal like piggies.
Every time I read something like this, it makes me feel sad. When I was young, I always thought the voting rights was a privilege.
Nowadays, I get the feeling that the whole voting is about voting between bad and worse, all leading to a loss in my part.
If the person I voted wins, I feel the guilt of voting for an idiot who will ruin the country.
If the person I voted loses, I feel like my vote has no power over anything.
Damn it, it's a lose-lose situation.
This is true. It takes a while to realise what's actually happening and once you get there, you can't go back.
There isn't a politician in the US that isn't a millionaire. Same thing is happening here. They are only helping themselves and we, the bunnies, are just fodder for their money making scams.
Just look for those $0.10 posted deals in overseas and get them busy processing $0.01 GST?
+1 Hahaha good one! 1c deals. Would love to get a bill for $0.0001 in GST
I was thinking the same thing. What if a large no. of people order these 1c items from overseas. Let's say about a couple of million 1c items. On arrival, what if they then ignore the collection notices? Will that induce some commonsense in these experts-in-everything that run our government?
It's almost as though this government is so backwards that they hate anything related to the internet. They ruined the NBN, they've brought in meta data laws, trying to censor what websites we can view and now attacking online shopping.
The only people that will benefit form this are large companies (that are already strangling small business) because their main competition would be cheaper overseas retailers, and Joe's friends who will be getting the new jobs that require tax officials to fly overseas to tell people about our new awesome taxation system.
Gerry Harvey must be smoking a celebratory cigar now that his political "contributions" are paying off.
It's almost as though this government is so backwards that they hate anything related to the internet
back in the days, a certain Liberals communications minister said internet is only good for porn and video games, go figure (google Richard Alston if you don't know who I am referring to)
Gerry Harvey must be smoking a celebratory cigar now that his political "contributions" are paying off.
I can picture him and buddy Joe (Hockey) lightin' some big fat cubans. Includes bonus smug "we sure screwed them poor plebs!" smirks.
I don't know why the Liberals don't follow their beliefs to the logical conclusion and make the internet illegal. I am sure they would love to shut the internet down and take us back to the good old analogue days.
Will they bother doing something with some meaning in it?
So f@cking dumb.
sigh really
So this is what Tone meant about closing Tax Loopholes… close the loopholes available to Individuals that directly reduce prices, and keep the company tax loopholes alone.
I thought he was talking about taxing the Google s of this world.
Can't touch them! Too big to fail = too big to control.
Im talking about the 4 little boxes on import/postage content declaration forms, even the australian one. They typically have 4 little boxes, gift, sample and i cant remember the other two, but none of them say purchase. WTF is with all these forms.
I have a feeling they may come to their senses and pass an "amendment" before 2017 to raise the threshold to $15 as in UK and other countries. Otherwise the cost of collecting it would outweigh the benefits.
Or they may just be dumb like some utilities companies.
My neighbour got an invoice for 7 cents! On the bottom it said as the balance is less $10 he does not need to pay it, it will roll over to the next month. Why just not send the bill in the first place.
Another story, my mother had a credit from Telstra from 3 years ago for $15 from when she changed her telco. Guess what! Every month she gets a bill with that credit on it.
She rang the first few times but it was no use. Now as soon as she gets the letter from Telstra it goes in the bin. Doesnt even open it. How smart is our largest telco then???
That is easily solved by simply tallying totals for each person by name and delivery address and charging them every other month or something.
Telstra was smart enough to give Sol Trujillo how many millions when he left.
Pffft voting. Its all rigged anyway. Just draw a big dick on the page instead and ballot that.