GST On Overseas Online Purchases

[Renato1 (Renato)]

Originally Posted by Eratosthenes

Murdoch's newscorp recently received a nice refund from the ATO to the tune of about 880 million dollars soon after the Abbott government was elected in 2013.

Hockey made no comment on the refund, and the government decided not to challenge the Federal Court ruling

Terry McCrann works for Murdoch doesnt he? Like Andrew Bolt, a world authority

Almost two-thirds of Australia’s top 100 companies listed on the stock exchange have subsidiaries in tax havens or low-tax jurisdictions, a new report shows.
Thirteen of the top 20 companies, including two of the big four banks, have entities in well-known tax havens such as the Cayman Islands, Luxembourg, the British Virgin Islands and Bermuda.


http://www.smh.com.au/business/top-f...524-2k719.html

Your response doesn't really address my points.
You state the ATO lost a case against Newscorp - and sort of infer the government conspiratorially didn't appeal. Might there have been another reason - like the ATO and the Government deciding their case was too weak?

You state Terry McCrann works for Newscorp - the inference being that anything he publishes is biased and untrue, without addressing the substance of what he wrote. The way he unequivocally slammed Fairfax and Michael West in his articles should have been cause for defamation suits by the latter, had there been any substance in what they had published.

Then you cite a Sydney Morning Herald article about a study by The Uniting Church into tax havens, written way back on 25 March 2013 - when the Gillard Government was in power - and where within the article Fairfax media admits it has several subsidiaries in those havens, and where it cites the then assistant Treasurer,
""If we see gaping holes in our laws then we need to do our best to legislate to close them,'' Assistant Treasurer David Bradbury said this week."

Is this somehow meant to refute Terry McCrann's points? If so, it escapes me.

And, while some Churches like the Catholic Church run programs for the needy locally (St Vincent De Paul) and for the needy overseas (Catholic Mission and Caritas), it is interesting to see that The Uniting Church chooses to fund someone to go and read the back of publicly available company reports, see where subsidiaries are located, and publish the results. And get Fairfax to write a piece on it, as if there was some great discovery there that wasn't publicly known before hand.
Regards,
Renato

[Camelopardalis (Dunk)]

Originally Posted by glend

I have purchased from UK suppliers and been able to get the VAT removed. Just make sure they understand at time of order that this is an export outside UK and EU. They have to process it to exempt and some can't be bothered or do it and pocket the VAT for themselves and don't remit to the government. This kills EU and UK export trade.

Having run a business in the UK myself, it's actually not a simple case of sticking the VAT in their own pocket...you have to understand the tax laws to appreciate why it appears that way.

Beneath a certain revenue threshold, you are essentially charged a flat rate of VAT on your total sales that you must return to HMRC and there is no facility to itemise export sales. Above the threshold your VAT return is directly calculated from the VAT charges on your sales, and you can itemise export orders.

So it's actually the small businesses with relatively low turnover that are not VAT registered that generally cannot export ex-VAT, as it comes out of their bottom line, and if their pricing is competitive there's precious little margin in it for them to make it cost effective. There's no free lunch when it comes to tax law

Then there are the retailers who can't be bothered to export, since the UK and/or EU market is large enough to sustain their business. That doesn't always mean they're a bad business, but IMO if they can't be bothered to put in the effort, they don't deserve my business.

In my experience, the cost of shipping the item is about the same or more than the VAT. Adding duty + GST will reduce the attractiveness of buying from overseas, but the current exchange rate is doing plenty to discourage that anyhow

[Neutronstar (T)]

Originally Posted by LewisM

Unless it is a niche item just not available here, I have found that if you do your homework, local is cheaper than importing.

I haven't bought OS except for niche "odd" items in a long time.

This has been my experience lately also, particularly on an items like digital cameras. The local warranty is also worth having rather than dealing with an online grey market dealer. I can site one camera example where Australia is the cheapest place to buy even cheaper than the USA. Lenses can be the opposite IF you want to risk an OS buy.

As Lewis advises, in all cases do your homework. I trawl eBay, usually find I am disappointed, then google both OS and local suppliers.

[FlashDrive (Poppy)]

I simply see this as the Government ' shoring ' up their ' Tax Base '

People will just resist buying online ...UNLESS THEY REALLY HAVE TO. ....

Glad I bought the ' Docter ' Eyepiece when I did....

Col....

[JB80 (Jarrod)]

Originally Posted by Renato1

On Ebay, the only EU country that Asian sellers say they won't sell to because of the amount of time to clear customs, is Italy. I suspect Italy does things very differently from other EU countries.
Regards,
Renato

They are bound by the same EU rules and regs as other EU nations though.
It's more because Italy's postal service is renowned for being so terrible and full of theft it is recommended to never post anything into or inside of Italy if you actually want it to get to the person with the added complication of their customs who routinely reject packages or they just disappear before even making the post office.

The sellers are sick of getting claims over packages that didn't arrive in Italy constantly so they refuse to sell to them.