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My hobby is about to get 10% more expensive


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In Australia if you buy something from overseas and it costs less than $1000 AUD you dont get charged any import tax, but that all changes on the 1st of July.

From that date onward the Australian government expects all companies in the world that sell more than $60K AUD to Australia in one year to get an Australian Business Number (ABN) and collect the 10% GST from Australians that buy on their website and send it to the Australian Tax office.

Obviously Ebay and Amazon and 2 big targets and Ebay has said it will comply so I will have to pay 10% GST on items bought from ebay going forward. What is not clear if that is on everything or just new items. GST is only meant to be be paid on new items but it has not been made clear if that will be the case on ebay. What also has not been made clear is if this will apply to only sellers that sell over $60K AUD to Australia each year, or all sellers because Ebay sells over $60K a year.

Amazon has stated that AUstralians will only be able to buy from Amazon AUstralia after the 1st of July cutting us off from Amazon UK and USA.

I'm sure Cousins would easily hit the 60K AUD limit but don't know if they plan to comply as I don't like the chances of the AUstralian tax department chasing and winning tax evasion with international companies.

But bottom line is that some of my purchases will be 10% more expensive soon. If Cousins also agrees to collect GST it will mean most watch and clock repairers in Australia will now have to pay more for parts which will push up the cost of repairs and drive more people away from fixing clocks and watches which will put the watch repairers industry into further decline in Australia.

Sorry about my rant, but I had to get it off my chest. I know there are plenty of valid arguments for and against this and obviously I fall into 'the against' group. In Australia everything already costs more due to our distance and isolation and the Internet was fixing that and now our government at the request of large Australian corporate companies is trying to push us back to the 'bad old days'.

I won't rant about this anywhere else than this thread I promise. :-)

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All I can say is that trade barriers have never worked out well in the past, but we all seem to have to keep learning that same lesson over and over again.

Some of us want the best of all possible worlds for everyone, some people want the best of all possible world for themselves and can't or won't see beyond their own self interest.

Just another thing that must be endured.

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Yes its certainly not within my power to change it, but a small rant does make me feel better, and its minor compared to the storm I think you will soon be weathering in the USA.

I doubt that the government in OZ will change their mind, but hopefully your issues will be short lived.

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5 hours ago, Tmuir said:

I'm sure Cousins would easily hit the 60K AUD limit but don't know if they plan to comply as I don't like the chances of the AUstralian tax department chasing and winning tax evasion with international companies.

That attempt would be laughable. In absence of specific international treaty, Australian laws and courts have zero jurisdiction on what foreigner companies and individuals do and where they ship to. The only thing they could do is to prohibit Australians from buying overseas, enforce customs, further lower the allowance, etc.

International tax laws are a complex law matter subject to a lot of politics, after years of whining in Europe about the big Americans not being taxed properly, but very little was actually accomplished. EU slammed a big fine on MSFT I think about their Ireland profits, but the Irish said they don't want any of that money just like their law said. Go figure.

 

 

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Yes its a well known fact that most companies wont comply, o r worse still say they are and pocket the extra money itself. In the long run it will be proven to only hurt the Australi an people, but it suites our current government to push the issue, not that I see the law been recinded if we get a change in government.

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16 hours ago, Tmuir said:

Yes its a well known fact that most companies wont comply,

You said the collection of GST in one post?  As much as I hate tax, if they are just collecting the sales tax its not a tariff or barrier to entry, i.e. still a level playing field with local retailers.

Presumably there's a value filled out somewhere on the shipping documents.  They're hardly going to go after the sender, they'll stick it to you.  Likely parcels arriving from a non VBA sender will be subject to the tax, and possibly an admin charge.  That's what a lot of carriers do here, worst is UPS.   $6 in VAT due and a$27 admin charge from the carrier.  don't pay, you don't get the parcel.  Feels like extortion with the excessive fees.  Grrrrrr, I feel your pain.

 

Edited by measuretwice
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Thats the dumb thing at the moment there is to be no border checking on these parcels, no way to show tax has been paid and no plans to collect tax at the border for items under $1000. The model is for the sellers to do all the work, collect the mobey andvsend it to Australia.

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On ‎6‎/‎28‎/‎2018 at 6:25 AM, Tmuir said:

In Australia if you buy something from overseas and it costs less than $1000 AUD you dont get charged any import tax, but that all changes on the 1st of July.

From that date onward the Australian government expects all companies in the world that sell more than $60K AUD to Australia in one year to get an Australian Business Number (ABN) and collect the 10% GST from Australians that buy on their website and send it to the Australian Tax office.

Obviously Ebay and Amazon and 2 big targets and Ebay has said it will comply so I will have to pay 10% GST on items bought from ebay going forward. What is not clear if that is on everything or just new items. GST is only meant to be be paid on new items but it has not been made clear if that will be the case on ebay. What also has not been made clear is if this will apply to only sellers that sell over $60K AUD to Australia each year, or all sellers because Ebay sells over $60K a year.

Amazon has stated that AUstralians will only be able to buy from Amazon AUstralia after the 1st of July cutting us off from Amazon UK and USA.

I'm sure Cousins would easily hit the 60K AUD limit but don't know if they plan to comply as I don't like the chances of the AUstralian tax department chasing and winning tax evasion with international companies.

But bottom line is that some of my purchases will be 10% more expensive soon. If Cousins also agrees to collect GST it will mean most watch and clock repairers in Australia will now have to pay more for parts which will push up the cost of repairs and drive more people away from fixing clocks and watches which will put the watch repairers industry into further decline in Australia.

Sorry about my rant, but I had to get it off my chest. I know there are plenty of valid arguments for and against this and obviously I fall into 'the against' group. In Australia everything already costs more due to our distance and isolation and the Internet was fixing that and now our government at the request of large Australian corporate companies is trying to push us back to the 'bad old days'.

I won't rant about this anywhere else than this thread I promise. :-)

   rant on my friend,   i totally agree.  vin

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I've started noticing that on ebay US on items using the global shipping program that they now want us to pay 'import duties' at purchase which is doggy.

It is not an import duty, the GST is meant to be collected by ebay, not the shipper, and of course GPS also wants to charge a fee for 'collecting' this import duty.

I generally avoid items that use GPS and its highly likely that we could end up buying an item on ebay that uses GPS and ebay collects the GST (whether from us or the seller), then GPS charges us the GST plus a collection fee so double dips.

Will wait and see what happens.

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  • 1 month later...

Here in Denmark, any item which is bought outside the EU with a value equal or greater than 80 DKK (€11, $12.50 or £9.65) and enters the country by post, if caught, will be charged with 25% VAT + registration cost. (https://skat.dk/skat.aspx?oid=2245294&ik_navn=subtree)

I was caught with a little $12.50 item out of China and received a letter saying that the parcel was held by the post / customs. They would release it as soon as I transferred the "ransom" of 20 DKK import duty and 160 DKK "registration"-cost; in total 180 DKK ($28 or £21.70). If not, they would destroy the parcel in two months time. Needles to say, the parcel was destroyed.

Parcels from the US are (nearly) always caught. eBay adds already automatically the import duties on items bought in the US, slowly adding from other outside EU countries.

Edited by Endeavor
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I think the import dutiues you refer to on ebay is only when the seller uses global priority shipping, if the seller posts themselves then they don't collect the duty, but they do collect 10% GST on all items sold to people in Australia when purchased outside Australia now.

All this has done is shift my purchasing habits for a number of items to other retailers that aren't collecting GST.

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You maybe perfectly right, but as soon as I see the "astronomical" added taxes, regardless what causes them, I'm out and look for a better deal. I don't like taxes; if I don't like an animal, I try not to feed it ;)

Edited by Endeavor
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  • 1 month later...
On 8/29/2018 at 7:05 PM, Endeavor said:

Here in Denmark, any item which is bought outside the EU with a value equal or greater than 80 DKK (€11, $12.50 or £9.65) and enters the country by post, if caught, will be charged with 25% VAT + registration cost. (https://skat.dk/skat.aspx?oid=2245294&ik_navn=subtree)

I was caught with a little $12.50 item out of China and received a letter saying that the parcel was held by the post / customs. They would release it as soon as I transferred the "ransom" of 20 DKK import duty and 160 DKK "registration"-cost; in total 180 DKK ($28 or £21.70). If not, they would destroy the parcel in two months time. Needles to say, the parcel was destroyed.

Parcels from the US are (nearly) always caught. eBay adds already automatically the import duties on items bought in the US, slowly adding from other outside EU countries.

Same problem here in Norway.. 25% on everything over 35€.. 

The worst part is when sending with ups, fedex or the other big companies they will charge a "service fee" of around 30€ just for reporting in the package to customs even though its tax free and under the 35€ limit. 

 

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3 minutes ago, Endeavor said:

I always thought, if things go south, I'll escape to beautiful Norway ....... Hmmm, same deal I see....... :o 

Im myself a Swedish citizen who moved here after living several years in France. To be fair Norway is a very pleasent country to live in except the cold, so so cold.. The import tax and expensive beers is my only complaint so far, and lazy Norwegians in the work place (yes most of them are super lazy, like insanely lazy) but the salary and the hard working polish people outweighs it so would definately recommend moving here! 

 

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On 8/29/2018 at 7:05 PM, Endeavor said:

Here in Denmark, any item which is bought outside the EU with a value equal or greater than 80 DKK (€11, $12.50 or £9.65) and enters the country by post, if caught, will be charged with 25% VAT + registration cost. (https://skat.dk/skat.aspx?oid=2245294&ik_navn=subtree)

I was caught with a little $12.50 item out of China and received a letter saying that the parcel was held by the post / customs. They would release it as soon as I transferred the "ransom" of 20 DKK import duty and 160 DKK "registration"-cost; in total 180 DKK ($28 or £21.70). If not, they would destroy the parcel in two months time. Needles to say, the parcel was destroyed.

Parcels from the US are (nearly) always caught. eBay adds already automatically the import duties on items bought in the US, slowly adding from other outside EU countries.

About the same here in Sweden. We have the same postal company to blame for that Postnord?

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