Thread: July the 1st 2018 GST On Low Value Imported Goods

I don’t think it will have any political ramifications at all.
Sure it is a nuisance and inconvenience but at the end of the day we are talking about an insignificant amount of money on non essential items that effects a minority of Australians
There are so many bigger issues going on in health , education etc etc etc that I don’t think it will get any traction and people will accept it as the new norm.

Originally Posted by woodPixel

BobL, agreed. I was doing some purchases for the shop this week.

10% paid to eBay on them, but no sign of a tax invoice.... Grrrr. Complicates my tax! Grrrr.

I'd reckon eBay are going to skim THE LOT. Remit it to the ATO? Hahahaha!!!!¡

omewhere along the line you have to get a tax invoice if you've paid GST. If not, take it up with the ATO - it's the law.
S

Originally Posted by Chrism3

omewhere along the line you have to get a tax invoice if you've paid GST. If not, take it up with the ATO - it's the law.
S

That may well be the case. But the guburnmunt has absolutely zero powers to make EBay, Amazon, or anyone else comply. There dogs dollop threat that they will stop these entities trading in Australia is also just threats. Any of those organisations have more IT house and capability in one corner of their head office than the government has in toto.

The horse has bolted but the solution was collection at border. Mandate it, make it happen. The proposition by business such as AP and the large freight companies that there would be an unreasonable and costly burden on business was grossly overstated. I know of more than one freight executive who is now sniggering.

if we continue to elect imbeciles, career politicians and public servants then this will continue to be the result.

What a lot fail to realise is that the world is watching and itching to collect this “extra” revenue.

Plain packaging on cigarettes was one good thing we led the way with. Such strategies are now quite common in other countries. This one, not so good result me thinks.

Originally Posted by Chrism3

omewhere along the line you have to get a tax invoice if you've paid GST. If not, take it up with the ATO - it's the law.
S

From my experience you do not get a standard tax invoice - you get an invoice for the item, and a separate invoice showing a payment to "Ebay Australia" for a "GST" that is unliked to the invoice for the item. It's not even labelled as an "Australian GST"

Its like ebay have deliberately kept the two payments as separate as possible - but why?

Ebay australia will probably send in a month bulk payment to the ATO but whose to say how much they will send in.

Originally Posted by BobL

Ebay australia will probably send in a month bulk payment to the ATO but whose to say how much they will send in.

Yep.

Ebay to ATO - "Here is your $212.67 for the last 3 months" ... Sorry, its been a bit slow...!

When the ATO questions it, I'm sure they will be told to GFTS.

Originally Posted by BobL

From my experience you do not get a standard tax invoice - you get an invoice for the item, and a separate invoice showing a payment to "Ebay Australia" for a "GST" that is unliked to the invoice for the item. It's not even labelled as an "Australian GST"

Its like ebay have deliberately kept the two payments as separate as possible - but why?

Ebay australia will probably send in a month bulk payment to the ATO but whose to say how much they will send in.

My guess is that they do not understand how Australian businesses require the GST to be listed on the Tax invoice so that they can claim GST Credits. The tax office probably doesn't care because if the businesses cannot claim back their GST on their business imports, and still have to add the compulsory 10% onto the items they sell to the end-user then the businesses are out of pocket, but the ATO still gets their 10% of the cost of the imported item.

Anyone interested in a good credit card for overseas purchases should look at 28 Degrees Mastercard. I have had it since 2012 and while it was even better back then (they have introduced some small fees) it is still an excellent card. They definitely give the full official exchange rate and I have even been able to put the card in credit and withdraw cash in the UK from all major ATMs with no fees (this is where they have some small fee now I think). It was actually a staff member at Bankwest put us on to it!

Gee's, enough of the conspiracy theories guy's. I know eBay are a pack of b!@#$%ds, but deliberately defrauding the Australian government? Come on!

Originally Posted by aldav

Gee's, enough of the conspiracy theories guy's. I know eBay are a pack of b!@#$%ds, but deliberately defrauding the Australian government? Come on!

They are a dotcom. A quick Google show they all pay zero tax... GST will be the first ever! They probably won't know where to send the cheque!

I had trouble getting my head around taxes when I ran a business, especially when it came to buying second hand goods from the public. I now have trouble with this tax invoice query in that the invoice is from the seller and some Aus sellers are good at supplying a tax invoice, if it is Ebay collecting the GST they can't supply a traditional tax invoice. Maybe I'm thick and someone can put me on the right track.

I emailed Lie-Nielsen Australia asking if they will price match against Lie-Nielsen USA, They said sure but I would have to call them to make the purchase. The above being as it is I am happy to purchase locally. Costs the same, should be faster delivery and no customs problems.

My understanding. I could be very wrong, it has happened before!

Whether or not the invoice states it is a tax invoice or not matters not. Once again, we can’t make Amazon do that. If GST ,or Tax of any sort is listed on the document and you are a business entitled to claim that GST because it is a business input. Then claim it. Many states in the US have their own particular taxes that Amazon and the like manage.

my first statement for Etsy contained a couple of gross errors withholding far more than they were entitled to. As my accountant explained, it all comes out in the wash.

Originally Posted by perthwoody

Anyone interested in a good credit card for overseas purchases should look at 28 Degrees Mastercard. I have had it since 2012 and while it was even better back then (they have introduced some small fees) it is still an excellent card. They definitely give the full official exchange rate and I have even been able to put the card in credit and withdraw cash in the UK from all major ATMs with no fees (this is where they have some small fee now I think). It was actually a staff member at Bankwest put us on to it!

We moved to Europe, lock stock and barrel, three years ago and still use our 28 Degrees card to pay for our day to day purchases and everything else we possibly can. It saves us a considerable amount of money.

360 posts in and comments are mostly opinion, supposition or hypothesis. Clearly no one is buying much while they worry about the 10% GST.
This is not woodworking related but applies regardless. Last week I purchased two pairs of shoes from an English online store costing about $500. I received the shoes four days later with no GST or import duty levied. I understand this store has a large Australian customer base so may very well be doing over $75k of sales a year.

By the way I use 28 Degrees credit card for all my overseas transactions. The cheapest card I know of. Been using it for over ten years.