NZ (and Aus) About To Be Hit With 'Amazon Tax'

[FletchNZ]

The buggers. The NZ govt is about to change the laws around the private importing of goods from overseas. At the moment goods under the value of $400 do not attract any other fees or taxes. This will change next year when they bring in the so-called "Amazon tax" wherein we will be charged GST for pretty much anything coming into the country. According to the article, Australia will be hit with the same tax in July.

This means an extra 15% on the blu-rays bought from overseas. Who knows if these will be held up in customs as well.

[shireguy]

We constantly get our Oz politicians scream to us about ‘free trade’ but of course that is a total lie.

They are about protectionism and taxing - nothing more.

You will COP THIS CRAP from them....

saying that leaving out low-value physical goods gave an unfair advantage to overseas sellers compared with New Zealand sellers.

UNFAIR
LEVEL PLAYING FIELD
CRAP !!

There has never been a 'level playing field' - it's called competition - and here in Oz we have monopolies and duopolies.....


And why should these overseas companies collect ‘taxes’ on behalf of other countries ?

How long will this last before these so called ‘liberal’ govts get the message that consumers won’t take this market interference?

It's about destroying 'markets' - increasing prices - and reducing competition. If you don't see it that way : then why introduce these 'taxes' onto consumers ?

We are getting screwed - time to do something about it

[Lavochkn]

Well that's ruined my day!

Probably 80% of my BluRay purchases come from AmazonUK and JBAUS.. guess i'll have to stop doing that, or buy less frequently.

Here in NZ, we get screwed over most of the time in terms of releases and certain physical media being readily available. My local JB has a lackluster selection, and ridiculous prices. I find it so much easier, and nearly always cheaper to bulk buy Blu's from Amazon and JB - 15% is ridiculous.

I understand the point of view of why this is being done, but in NZ, and by extension AUS, we get shunned with releases half of the time, which in turn forces us to buy internationally. Now they want to tax us further on this? Rubbish. Makes no sense.

Maybe AUS/NZ distributors will see this and start upping their game in terms of BluRay releases that we get here.. otherwise i'm going to have to attempt to find everything I want locally - a task made impossible by our distributors.

[Alister_M]

Well, time to stock up before it kicks in I suppose. Hopefully it'll end up being such a pain in the ass on the government's end in terms of collecting it that they'll end up quietly dropping it.

[Aunt Peg]

Whilst this is likely to effect items purchased from Amazon, smaller companies will not be effected by this to items can still be purchased on-line into Australia (and I would suspect NZ too) with attracting a GST.

Put simply the ATO has NO way of forcing any foreign seller to comply with this. They cannot prosecute them because it is out of their legal jurisdiction. These are foreign companies not Australian or NZ. The only reason I suspect Amazon will comply is that they operate in Australia, ditto other very large companies.

Several things people can do:

use other sellers (though I admit a pain because I find Amazon good) or look at your spending overall and see what you can cut out to make up for the cost increase. For example don't buy any junk food (it's bad for you anyway and cost a fortune), do you really need to buy that t-shirt?, cut down on going to the cinema - it's overpriced anyway, eat out a little less, etc.

I'm not happy about this myself but I'm going to hit businesses in Australia so they won't be collecting any additional GST from me. GST on items purchased via Amazon will be negated by $$$$ I spend in Australian businesses.

[Aunt Peg]

I forgot to mention that I was only having a conversation about this with someone yesterday and we both agreed that the Government isn'g going to collect any additional tax. People will do a mixture of curb their spending overseas but also curb their spending in Australia. The net result: a very slight increase of GST collected at best.

[Solent]

Will this tax on the value of the goods only or is it to be on the total value: including shipping?

[Alister_M]

Yeah, and the costs involved in implementing it will make it even less worthwhile. Almost seems like little more than political sabre-rattling to suck up all the local businesses, especially since the current government is in the bad books of a lot of small business owners (mostly due to their own self-imagined perceptions, but that's a different discussion).

Anyway I barely use Amazon as I find their postage prices utterly ridiculous. Will have to see how this affects WowHD and Ebay, which are my two primary sources of overseas discs (aside from the UK stuff I regularly pick up from The Warehouse).

[lemonski]

Get an account with a freight forwarder, have your purchases consolidated and forwarded to you. The retailer won't be able to charge you NZ GST if they are shipping to a US address. Depending on the store location and the location of the freight forwarder you may be able to avoid state sales tax, or maybe not, but it will still be cheaper than 15% GST. Plus you can take advantage of free shipping deals to your forwarder.

I'd also be very surprised if every retailer signs up.

[Aunt Peg]

Originally Posted by lemonski

I'd also be very surprised if every retailer signs up.

Exactly. There must be hundreds of millions of business selling goods all over the world it is absolutely impossible to get them 'on board' and they have no legal requirement to do so.

[PT Ryan]

Australia is also looking at slapping a Border Force “inspection fee” on all imported goods, but that’s in the discussion paper stages at this point. Utterly ridiculous regardless, and it won’t make me any more likely to buy at Harvey Norman (which is all this GST on imports is meant to do).

[lemonski]

Originally Posted by Aunt Peg

Exactly. There must be hundreds of millions of business selling goods all over the world it is absolutely impossible to get them 'on board' and they have no legal requirement to do so.

And if I purchase the goods for business use, is Amazon going to give me a GST invoice so I can claim it back?

This is going to work as well as most Government ideas...

[Aunt Peg]

Originally Posted by PT Ryan

Australia is also looking at slapping a Border Force “inspection fee” on all imported goods, but that’s in the discussion paper stages at this point. Utterly ridiculous regardless, and it won’t make me any more likely to buy at Harvey Norman (which is all this GST on imports is meant to do).

Some good news. The idea has been rejected. Government Departments come up with all sorts of recommendations. Some taken up, others rejected. As for Jerry Harvey, I'd rather pay more elsewhere than spend one cent at one of his crappy, bad service, lying stores.

The last thing I ever purchased at Harvey Normans was a Blu Ray player back in 2009. I asked if it was region free and was told that it was. Anyway I imported a Region A disc, and presto - it would not play. When I complained they stated that they did lie because the player was region free for DVDs!

Great way to keep customers coming. We need a Royal Commission into the selling practices of Australia's large retail businesses.

[shireguy]

[quote=Aunt Peg;15015625]I forgot to mention that I was only having a conversation about this with someone yesterday and we both agreed that the Government isn'g going to collect any additional tax. People will do a mixture of curb their spending overseas but also curb their spending in Australia. The net result: a very slight increase of GST collected at best.[/QUOTE]

increase ... or decrease ??

We are seeing 'gradual' changes in many ways that we go about doing things in this country.....

such as "no plastic bags" from Coles and Woolies (not sure what State you are in) - but this is one of the most stupid of ideas - keen to see how NSW people deal with it. There goes you dropping in for a week items... fork out 10c a 'bag' (oh.. but it's ONLY 10c I'll hear next.. and you are saving the environment !!)


Pity the same people aren't saving the environment with all of that take away paper and plastic garbage.


Then there's the plastic bottle 'tax' in NSW.


And then there's having all recyclable wrapping in products....

Several things people can do:
or look at your spending overall and see what you can cut out to make up for the cost increase. For example don't buy any junk food (it's bad for you anyway and cost a fortune), do you really need to buy that t-shirt?, cut down on going to the cinema - it's overpriced anyway, eat out a little less, etc.

otherwise - let's just kill our economy : that's OK - the current Govts are good at doing that.

it's easier to tax consumers - that tackle other forms of tax dodging.

[Aunt Peg]

I'm in NSW.

I live in Jamie Parkers seat. He is a useless Green who only cares about 2 terraces houses in Leichhardt being pulled down rather than the fact that there is nowhere in inner city to take cans and bottles to get get refunded.

I meant slight increase in GST collection but there could even be a decrease if people change their internet shopping habits to different overseas sellers. If they think they are going to collect hundreds of millions (which the Government claim in news articles) they are fooling themselves. People only have a certain amount of spare cash and they will simply cut back somewhere and not necessarily overseas internet shopping.

The reason they don't tax the wealthy is because it's too difficult. The wealthy (individuals and companies) can afford lawyers to minimise their taxation legally. The ordinary folk cannot. Don't know if anyone saw the Four Corners program a couple of weeks ago but it was about the ATO using strong-arm measures against small business (and individuals) which they would not dare pull on the big end of town. This appears to have been done under both ALP & LNP run Governments. Different labels same crap.

[nitin]

Aunt Peg is right, apart from ebay and Amazon, I can’t see any of the other etailers overseas complying with collecting tax for the Australian govt. But it will apply to online purchases of any sort, even of digital items, so I suspect Apple and other bigger digital emailers might also comply.

[ian959]

Originally Posted by nitin

Aunt Peg is right, apart from ebay and Amazon, I can’t see any of the other etailers overseas complying with collecting tax for the Australian govt. But it will apply to online purchases of any sort, even of digital items, so I suspect Apple and other bigger digital emailers might also comply.

It has potentially nothing to do with the e-tailers, if the government thought about it... it would more sensibly be collected in NZ/Aus by the post office or the freight companies/customs brokers. However, there is nothing to stop the government making it incumbent upon the seller to register and deal with the GST, even though it is NOT the sensible way of going about it all. For most e-tailers, registering and dealing with the GST would likely not be a significant issue and one that only the smallest of e-tailers would likely baulk at.

Whilst the Australian $1000 limit is ridiculously high and should be reduced to something more sensible like $250, eliminating a reasonable limit like NZ is proposing is ridiculous in the extreme as it will inevitably cost more to collect the GST than it will raise. A fairly typical lack of logical thinking by the Labor government. If the country is that desperate for $64 million, then there are more fundamental problems that should be looked at.

[Gomephrus]

[quote=shireguy;15015739]

Originally Posted by Aunt Peg

I forgot to mention that I was only having a conversation about this with someone yesterday and we both agreed that the Government isn'g going to collect any additional tax. People will do a mixture of curb their spending overseas but also curb their spending in Australia. The net result: a very slight increase of GST collected at best.[/QUOTE]

increase ... or decrease ??

We are seeing 'gradual' changes in many ways that we go about doing things in this country.....

such as "no plastic bags" from Coles and Woolies (not sure what State you are in) - but this is one of the most stupid of ideas - keen to see how NSW people deal with it. There goes you dropping in for a week items... fork out 10c a 'bag' (oh.. but it's ONLY 10c I'll hear next.. and you are saving the environment !!)


Pity the same people aren't saving the environment with all of that take away paper and plastic garbage.


Then there's the plastic bottle 'tax' in NSW.


And then there's having all recyclable wrapping in products....






otherwise - let's just kill our economy : that's OK - the current Govts are good at doing that.

it's easier to tax consumers - that tackle other forms of tax dodging.

In SA we havent had plastic bags for 10 years now without hassel.

[nitin]

Originally Posted by ian959

It has potentially nothing to do with the e-tailers, if the government thought about it... it would more sensibly be collected in NZ/Aus by the post office or the freight companies/customs brokers. However, there is nothing to stop the government making it incumbent upon the seller to register and deal with the GST, even though it is NOT the sensible way of going about it all. For most e-tailers, registering and dealing with the GST would likely not be a significant issue and one that only the smallest of e-tailers would likely baulk at.

Whilst the Australian $1000 limit is ridiculously high and should be reduced to something more sensible like $250, eliminating a reasonable limit like NZ is proposing is ridiculous in the extreme as it will inevitably cost more to collect the GST than it will raise. A fairly typical lack of logical thinking by the Labor government. If the country is that desperate for $64 million, then there are more fundamental problems that should be looked at.

They didn’t implement the collect at post office/customs option because Treasury costing said it would cost more in resourcing than would bring in via revenue collection. Now the Treasury costing may have been inaccurate but that’s a different issue.

Also, unless an overseas etailer also has a related Australian presence, the govt can not enforce compliance with the option they have chosen, for the reasons Aunt Peg has mentioned above.

[donthitpause]

Originally Posted by Aunt Peg

I'm in NSW.

I live in Jamie Parkers seat. He is a useless Green who only cares about 2 terraces houses in Leichhardt being pulled down rather than the fact that there is nowhere in inner city to take cans and bottles to get get refunded.

You say that like there's somehow a useful Green option available out there...