A final update, I received two items today, from feathertouch and OPT. Both were ordered before 1st July but arrived after GST was payable. There was no GST charge.
On the other hand I ordered a Hubble artificial star off Ebay from Hong Kong this morning and got wacked USD 2.50 on checkout.
Cheers
Paul
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zuts
Hi,
GST or not, it seems that is was released. 200 USD of stuff from Baader
UPS Tracking
Location
Date
Local Time
Activity
Botany, Australia
01/07/2018
16:17
Arrival Scan
01/07/2018
9:39
Your package is being processed at the clearance agency. / Your package was released by the clearing agency.
01/07/2018
7:42
Your package is being processed at the clearance agency.
Honolulu, HI, United States
30/06/2018
10:24
Departure Scan
30/06/2018
7:19
Arrival Scan
30/06/2018
14:59
The package is awaiting clearing agency review. / Your package was released by the clearing agency.
Louisville, KY, United States
30/06/2018
4:44
Departure Scan
Louisville, KY, United States
29/06/2018
22:43
Arrival Scan
Koeln, Germany
29/06/2018
22:00
Departure Scan
A final update, I received two items today, from feathertouch and OPT. Both were ordered before 1st July but arrived after GST was payable. There was no GST charge...
Thanks Paul, that's put my mind at ease regarding a recent purchase from Canada.
Just an extension to this discussion - what is the mechanism, if there is one, to claim a GST refund if items are returned and you get the cost of the item refunded, ie not an exchange.
Just an extension to this discussion - what is the mechanism, if there is one, to claim a GST refund if items are returned and you get the cost of the item refunded, ie not an exchange.
Darrell
I doubt that scenario has even been considered by the powers that be, a mere suggestion of giving money back would have a certain duo in the Government turning red in the face.
Perhaps they have in place a refund scheme like Singapore Customs, but whatever it is it will be so complex by design that most people will not bother.....
Just an extension to this discussion - what is the mechanism, if there is one, to claim a GST refund if items are returned and you get the cost of the item refunded, ie not an exchange.
Darrell
You'd probably be able to pay a significant fee to get your claim assessed (eg. pay $175 to get $50 back).
Well, if the seller has registered for GST they will refund the GST inclusive price and reclaim the GST on their next Business Activity Statement. As, is more likely, they are not registered for GST or even aware of GST - who knows?
Well, good news (which was probably obvious to anyone rational, unlike panic prone me): my new StarGPS unit arrived safely from Canada this morning. No GST shenanigans, and the parcel arrived in 13 days. There was no tracking, but I'd hazard a guess and say 3/4 of that was from Sydney/Brisbane to Townsville.
Just bought a .965" - 1.25" adaptor on eBay. As expected, +10% at checkout.
The Ebay GST charge is pretty painless, and given the savings by purchasing OS, this will help the govt coffers but will do little to help the likes of Harvey.N
Interesting to note that the GST was taken out as a separate transaction on my bank acc.
What about second hand? From what I can see EBay is applying the new tax to new or used items?
It is all very confusing. I think the legislation treats eBay as being what it refers to as an Electronic Distribution Platform (EDP) and therefore being the effective seller of the goods. Because eBay makes sales of over $75k per year it has to register for and charge GST. Any second hand goods are being sold in the normal course of eBays business and so they are subject to GST in the same way as new goods. If I buy something under $1000 from overseas I will be interested to see if the GST is charged as one transaction on the total cost including postage. I suppose it could be argued that eBay is simply a mechanism for bringing buyers and sellers together and so the person listing the item is actually the seller, but as far as I can see that is not the way the legislation has been written. Obviously a fudge because different rules apply to items bought under the hammer at auction.
Last edited by rrussell1962; 12-07-2018 at 07:41 AM.
I’m already noticing sellers in the US and Europe who previously would ship to Aus are now declining to take an order based on either the delivery address or billing address (if paying by credit card).
Solutions:
1. Use a freight forwarding company that provides a delivery address in the sellers country (eg MyUS for America).
2. Use Paypal for payment so your address is not revealed to the vendor.
3. You can write to the vendor and point out that the carrier - such as Fedex - has arrangements established to pay the tax and there is no legal obstacle. This will be harder to do, but it is true Fedex for one does do the GST payment when the good land here and issues a Tax Invoice. No heartache for the vendor.
I should add that I’m already going doing 1 and 2 for parts that have no local alternative here and the only sources are foreign. 3 is unfortunately limited to vendors that offer to ship via FedEx, ie the US. So far I don’t know what will happen with stuff ordered from the EU and China, but I’m going to find out very soon.
