GST on Internet Purchases

[Barrykgerdes]

Actually the goverment could easily add GST to all those purchasers without cost to themselves. The delivery people in Australia (PO etc) could be forced to put the tax on these items and collect it for the govt. before they deliver it. This would of course make the delivery more expensive (COD) so they would need to add their cut and the end user would naturally end up paying.

Don't sell GH short. Other businesses tried that and went broke. He bought up the pieces and made a second fortune. KP did the same.

Barry

[snowyskiesau]

Collection of GST on imports of less than $1000 has already been deemed uneconomical to collect according to the Board of Taxation report from February 2010.

It would difficult to justify imposing it 12 months later.

[mswhin63 (Malcolm)]

Originally Posted by snowyskiesau

Collection of GST on imports of less than $1000 has already been deemed uneconomical to collect according to the Board of Taxation report from February 2010.

It would difficult to justify imposing it 12 months later.

Has the government done anything sensible, sorry gotta laugh I could imagine them doing the opposite.

[marki]

Now if Gerry really used his noggin he would be demanding the removal of GST from items costing less then $1000.00 to level up the playing field. I am sure he would get the backing of every Australian for that .


Mark

[The Mekon (John Briggs)]

Originally Posted by torana68

yeah maybe but I dont pay it to the govt the retailer or buiness provider collects it for the government. the ONLY way to collect it would be to stop every parcell comming in and levy "GST" at the border, not doable.... or have a law that requires the business you buy from to collect the "GST" for the Govt... not doable

It used to be done!

20 years ago when I was buying astro gear from the USA, I had to pay the sales tax and any duty at the Post Office prior to collecting the item. I can recall paying the 20% sales tax on items that were as little as $200.

As for the those (including the Govt) who claim the cost of collection is more than the tax collected, if it discourages overseas purchases, then the tax take on domestic sales will rise. Either way the governemnet will win.

I'm sorry but I'm with GH all the way on this one.
I have kids that need a future that is not mortgaged overseas.

[GeoffW1 (Geoff)]

Originally Posted by JethroB76

Compare the prices in HN even to other locally based shops. The place is a joke.

Hi,

True, in my opinion also. It's a tried and true business model, where you get yourself a high profile, advertise intensively, and you can charge extra.

They have been known for years for this amongst keen comparison shoppers. You could beat their prices in DJs sometimes.

Cheers

[Ephemeral (John)]

Adding GST to the price of goods is not going to make an iota of difference.

What future for your kids, I'm sure they will want to work in HN selling TV's

Do they pay any less in freight/taxes etc in the US to purchase items from China, I don't think so yet they can sell items for 1/2 the price that consumers pay in Aust.

Ok so they have a bigger market, they can sell more items at a lower price you may say

So retailer A in USA marks up his items less but sells more to make the same profit as the retailer B in Australia who sells less but charges more, the way I look at this is profiteering pure and simple. Retailer B wants to be as rich as retailer A but has a market 1/10 the size.

Remember it's these same retailers and producers who undermined industry and manufacturing in Australia so they could get richer at the consumers expense.

[FlashDrive (Poppy)]

[QUOTE=Ephemeral;673974]



So retailer A in USA marks up his items less but sells more to make the same profit as the retailer B in Australia who sells less but charges more, the way I look at this is profiteering pure and simple. Retailer B wants to be as rich as retailer A but has a market 1/10 the size.


Here...Here.....Well said and to the point.....

[Barrykgerdes]

Hi

I am sure that most of the unhappy respondents have no idea of how the retail trade operate in Australia when they refer to profiteering. The big retailers all compete with each other and charge the lowest prices they can to get the business.

If you check on the investments in these companies and relate this to the annual profit you will find that profit is only a small % of the investment. The overheads in marketing in Australia are immense particularly in the cost of employing sales staff and complying to government regulations.

Online shopping from overseas companies where they do not have these expenses undermines the the profitability of the Australian retailers. This will cause them to downsize and eventually fold and leave all their employees without jobs or income. These people will then need to be paid from welfare (dole) which comes from the government's income. A principal source of this income is GST. No GST! No dole!

Much as we all hate paying GST and other government charges it is how this country is run. None of the "free" services the government supplies are really free. Someone has to pay in the long run.

Of course I am biased in favour of the goverment's money collection policies. They pay me a lucrative indexed pension that keeps me very comfortably in my retirement. So keep up your GST payments.

Barry

[cfranks (Charles)]

I recently had to put my company into receivership and one of the reasons (and certainly not the greatest) was due to our Government (State) buying from o'seas. The good, recent, 'School Initiative' of giving a lot of money to schools for the purchase of computers has the requirement that the school purchase Dell or HP equipment. HP has some infrastructure here but Dell doesn't have much. Reliable equipment sure, but all the money goes straight out of the country. I no longer worry about any purchases I make.
Charles

[el_draco (Rom)]

Originally Posted by The Mekon

I am afraid most of the members on this forum are greedy penny pinchers who refuse to pay there fair share of tax.

What is more Australian than a fair and even market? At the moment it is skewed towards foreign sellers.

I have to disagree with you on this one. If I have to pay a reasonable amount extra for a product in Australia then I have no problems with that because of the distance component in importing a product from overseas.

What I object to is a business in Australia charging a 500% mark-up and saying "take it or leave it". Thats not a fair and even market.

Nor is setting up CARTEL arrangements with foreign companies to prevent competition by banning the export of their products to Australia in an effort to prop up monopolies in this country. Celestron is a PERFECT example of that.

I suggest, like many other posters to this thread, that if the Aussie retailers want to keep their customers then they should invest some effort in not treating us like cattle and maybe catching up with the rest of the world in terms of online retail operations. I mean, really, you expect me to pay a huge mark-up AND deal with crap service?

Aussie retaillers pushed for "Globalisation" now they have to live with it too.

[wasyoungonce (Brendan)]

Well funny enough the prices at the major Australian telescope shop retailers appear to be starting to fall.

Mainly on run out models but the signs are appearing.

Anyway the GST will not stay at 10%....it will rise..as with other economies.

[marki]

Originally Posted by Barrykgerdes

Hi

Online shopping from overseas companies where they do not have these expenses undermines the the profitability of the Australian retailers. This will cause them to downsize and eventually fold and leave all their employees without jobs or income. These people will then need to be paid from welfare (dole) which comes from the government's income. A principal source of this income is GST. No GST! No dole!


Barry

Oh really? So how was the dole paid for before the GST was dumped on Australians??? If I remember correctly it was sold to the public on the basis that it would simplify the taxation system by getting rid of the rest of the tax's, something that has not happened at least here in WA where stampduties, sales tax etc still exist. Succesive governments have just squandered the extra money raised by this tax which has not been fairly distributed among states as promised when it was implimented. Most the money raised here in WA from the GST is sent east and we get the crumbs as a reward for being the major bread winner for this country. As for retail workers they are amongst the lowest paid workers in Oz and we are supposed to thank Gerry and friends for keeping them that way are we? Perhaps the folding of the australian retail industry is the best thing that could happen for many of its employees as they will find there are a lot of better options out there.

Mark

[GeoffW1 (Geoff)]

Originally Posted by snowyskiesau

Collection of GST on imports of less than $1000 has already been deemed uneconomical to collect according to the Board of Taxation report from February 2010.

It would difficult to justify imposing it 12 months later.

That damned avatar of yours I just tried to kill it 3 times

[Barrykgerdes]

Originally Posted by marki

Oh really? So how was the dole paid for before the GST was dumped on Australians??? If I remember correctly it was sold to the public on the basis that it would simplify the taxation system by getting rid of the rest of the tax's, something that has not happened at least here in WA where stampduties, sales tax etc still exist. Succesive governments have just squandered the extra money raised by this tax which has not been fairly distributed among states as promised when it was implimented. Most the money raised here in WA from the GST is sent east and we get the crumbs as a reward for being the major bread winner for this country. As for retail workers they are amongst the lowest paid workers in Oz and we are supposed to thank Gerry and friends for keeping them that way are we? Perhaps the folding of the australian retail industry is the best thing that could happen for many of its employees as they will find there are a lot of better options out there.

Mark

The dole is always paid from Fed. Government income. The GST was just a new form of sales tax that was implimented to raise an actual increase in revenue for less effort than the collection of sales tax. So the federal government gives the GST to the states. This saved them lots of work and bickering for state grants out of the federal income to run their states

The goverment brings down a budget every year on what it has needs to spend (or waste) on with the amount of money it expects to collect in taxes etc. The bulk of its revenue comes from the general working population either directly by income tax or indirectly other government charges including GST.

At one time governments made their money from excise or import duty so it was largely invisible to the final user. Now with globalisation duty is a naughty word because it allows the rich countries to stay rich at the expense of the poor. While making the very, very rich people in that country, richer.

I will admit I was absolutely against a GST when it was mooted as I had all sorts of loop holes to avoid sales tax. Now I am fully in favour of it and it should be on everything, else the country will eventually go broke.

Barry

[wasyoungonce (Brendan)]

Originally Posted by Barrykgerdes

... and it should be on everything, else the country will eventually go broke.
Barry

Well not on everything, there would always and should always be exceptions....I mean taxing sick children's/people's medicine would be and is obscene.

VAT I believe is not collected on kids clothing etc in England and they didn't end up in their finical mess because of this...it was big business greed, poor investment margins.

[wasyoungonce (Brendan)]

Anyway this video clip shows what they (overseas, Chinese I think) think of this storm ..well it made me laugh..

[Barrykgerdes]

Originally Posted by wasyoungonce

Well not on everything, there would always and should always be exceptions....I mean taxing sick children's/people's medicine would be and is obscene.

VAT I believe is not collected on kids clothing etc in England and they didn't end up in their finical mess because of this...it was big business greed, poor investment margins.

Yes I agree that some items should not be taxed in this way but it makes collection harder when there are exemptions. So these organisations should be able to get a full refund from the government. Medical expenses however are already subsidised for the card carrying needy so GST is not paid on them.

Yes a lot of the financial woes from governments did come from investing (our money) in schemes that paid above the going rate for interest. That went bust as soon as the economy had a small down turn.

Off the subject but on the cost of health. When I was young the standard cure for most items was castor oil. You needed to be awfully sick for a second opinion. Think of the money that could be saved if the doctors went back to this "cure"

Barry

[hotspur (Chris)]

I am only very new to this overseas purchasing experience.less than one year.

But the savings have been very good.

But the service is much better than most (not all) retail experiences I've had in
Australia.

But the most important aspect of all,is been able to source items I simply cannot get in this Country.I have found communicating between overseas vendors on unusual items,to be very,very good-these people have a passion for their product.Regardless of GST or no GST I'd still buy a fair bit overseas.

I am feed up with going into HN shops,to spend over a K on a fridge/stove etc and have the sales people have no idea on the product I want to know about.

Sure,you cant get a fridge sent from OS,so shop around,But to my mind service has quite a bit to do with a purchase,not just price-I feel the GST speal by HN is a bit of a vent.

Just my two cents worth.

C

[wasyoungonce (Brendan)]

A little OT..but FWIW..

While the GST income has been a "boon" for the Australian government..the cost of health services, infrastructure, armed services and welfare has risen sharply.

It looks as if we are struggling..with balance sheets but at them moment we are just staying ahead. I'd expect to see a rise in GST rates in lets say 2 years...as with most other countries.

The superannuation savings (investments) Australia has (one of the best in the world) really helped protect us from the GFC...and China kept buying raw materials. This compulsory super was one of the best things Keating did. But he also said the compulsory contribution rates had to rise to keep it self sustaining. This has not happened.

The increased cost of the above is putting pressure on Australia's ability to fund it self...thus I'd expect to see GST and compulsory super contribution rates increase...sometime