Thread: GST on Imports

Originally Posted by cultana

Well its all back on again..
Online sales will kill jobs: retailers | The Australian

Perhaps if these retailers tried to give a bit of fast service it might help. .

i agree .. adding 10% to overseas prices isn't going to help that ...

it also isn't going to bring the price up to the overseas price plus postage and make their PRICES competitive ...

one wonders why they are interested in pursuing this at all

Originally Posted by cultana

Well its all back on again..
I seriously doubt the complaining retailers care one bit about GST for the government.

particularly not when (as i think it said in that article) the cost of collecting the gst would be more than the gst collected



at the same time i might add that i buy a bit of stuff from both switzerland and america so have a vested interest in the situation not changing ... it would still be worht my while to do it but i would HATE having to fill out a NAT1 (a one page form for when you do go over $1000 which takes me about half a day to complete) for every overseas purchase

whilst not the only thing, the main thing i buy is sheet music which, if i go to the local music store, they are uninterested in getting, take heaps longer to get and price over twice as much more (on one quote five times as much) ... a fair bit of sheet music i can get in pdf or sometimes sibellius files which means they are on my computer in a few minutes


regards david

the CD which the music shop reckoned htey couldn't source, which i ordered in norway, online; which was despatched from usa same day and arrived here three days later

the power of the internet

regards david

Originally Posted by cultana

Well its all back on again..
Online sales will kill jobs: retailers | The Australian

Perhaps if these retailers tried to give a bit of fast service it might help.

I seriously doubt the complaining retailers care one bit about GST for the government.

They don't care about the G[rab] S[teal] T[ake] at all - in many cases it appears to be envy or bile.

"We can't stop it - we don't care to compete so, let's try and make it less attractive and harder for the consumers so that we will be seen as the easier option by those too lazy to jump through the hoops"

Originally Posted by robbygard

i agree .. adding 10% to overseas prices isn't going to help that ...

It won't be just 10% and Jerry Harvey knows that...

It will be more like 50% to 100% as the tax office also bills the purchaser the cost to assess the GST on the imported goods...

I think the retailers can go get stuffed, it is not like the retail industry is an industry that is of major importance to the good of the country...

Some more ammunition against the dropping of the GST import threshold, this time from the Board of Taxation.
http://www.taxboard.gov.au/content/r...ons_report.pdf

The Executive Summary details simply the reasons of why it hopefully won't go any further, that "the collection of GST on cross-border transactions can be inefficient due to the difficulties associated with enforcing GST compliance on a non-resident outside Australia’s jurisdiction."

The other point that the slapped together Retail Coalition hasn't and won't address is summed up in the follwoing "Ruslan Kogan from the Kogan Company, a manufacturer and online retailer for technology products, says the ad campaign is misleading.

"These guys are deceiving the public - they are not talking about the real issues," he said.

"They are not talking about what's causing them to be uncompetitive and they're not willing to change the way they do things.

"If you look at a certain camera for instance, it costs $500 in Australia and $250 in the US. The reason for that isn't the 10 per cent GST.

"The reason for that is that the retailers in the US have negotiated much better prices from the distributors than the big retailers in Australia have.

"So a businessman looks at the commercial environment in the marketplace and tries to find ways to innovate for their customers in order to give them a better deal."

Retailers' online ad campaign 'sour grapes' - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

I think from the actions of the Retail Coalition and their ad campaign will see a negative action of people choosing to boycot the likes of Harvey Norman and others. As with every business in any industry, if you don't innovate then you won't survive.

So in fairness to the small retailers of Australia, does that mean that many of these large retail chains are, in exchange, going to give up their very favourable rental agreements (including 'rent free' for key shopping centre tennants) with major shopping centers, or do they need to keep that advantage to be competitive locally?

Now this is all out in the open, do you think it might put enough pressure on the bs to burst the housing price bubble? (ie rents)

As Waldo says, the media don't seem to taking the big retailers claims very seriously.
Cheers,
Jim

I was watching this with interest yesterday via the online newspapers. At 9am they were talking up their story about how the retailers are up in arms about internet retailing and there should be 10% GST applied to level the field.

Over the course of the day the readers comments started to come in thick and fast. By the end of the day the story had changed to how the consumers felt that Australian retailers were having a lend of the customer offering poor service, poor choice, high prices, poor stock etc.

Today it is more about the public giving the big companies a kicking. Instead of helping the retailers, their campaign seems to have just given the customers a forum to vent their issues ...... so perhaps a backfire.

As for one of the major retailers with the bad ads and internal advertising department he should just sink into the background. All of his media work in the last 12 months makes him come across as a complete winger who is trying to cut down any competition who have come up with fresh ideas. Perhaps it was different when he was trying to break into the market.

Mindnight news - ABC last night - it now becomes a little clearer - stir up the water and the dangle the bait for what you really want.

".....the retailers are calling for GST to be applied to all internet transactions or have it removed from all retail sales....." - I can only presume they meant up to the current threshold of $1000.00.

Next we will be told that this will make them more competitive and reduce prices and create jobs.

Originally Posted by Waldo

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"If you look at a certain camera for instance, it costs $500 in Australia and $250 in the US. The reason for that isn't the 10 per cent GST.

"The reason for that is that the retailers in the US have negotiated much better prices from the distributors than the big retailers in Australia have.
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It's not just the retailer/distributor link, perhaps even bigger is the OS manufacturer/distributor link. The OS manufacturer knows that an AUS distributor will only need 10 units of product annually whereas the US distributor will need 150 units annually. Some US retailers can often buy a product cheaper from their distributor cheaper than what the AUS distributor can buy it from the OS manufacturer. It's even more skewed that this. The US is world consumer central and no large supplier can afford to be out of that market so deals are often cut for US distributor that are below the OS manufacturers cost. These losses are then recouped from prices paid by the distributors of smaller countries. This is unsustainable - fortunately eventually the US$ will be worthless so their prices will have to rise fast.

Originally Posted by Bob38S

Mindnight news - ABC last night - it now becomes a little clearer - stir up the water and the dangle the bait for what you really want.

".....the retailers are calling for GST to be applied to all internet transactions or have it removed from all retail sales....." - I can only presume they meant up to the current threshold of $1000.00.

Next we will be told that this will make them more competitive and reduce prices and create jobs.

And, if they get what they want can you imagine the complete GST equivalent being passed on to the consumer? I wonder if they have an excuse ready.
Cheers,
Jim

Originally Posted by BobL

It's not just the retailer/distributor link, perhaps even bigger is the OS manufacturer/distributor link. The OS manufacturer knows that an AUS distributor will only need 10 units of product annually whereas the US distributor will need 150 units annually. Some US retailers can often buy a product cheaper from their distributor cheaper than what the AUS distributor can buy it from the OS manufacturer. It's even more skewed that this. The US is world consumer central and no large supplier can afford to be out of that market so deals are often cut for US distributor that are below the OS manufacturers cost. These losses are then recouped from prices paid by the distributors of smaller countries. This is unsustainable - fortunately eventually the US$ will be worthless so their prices will have to rise fast.

Yes to some degree.
The other problem we have here in OZ is the level of middlemen. Each has to take a their cut in the process so by the time it gets to us the sucker at the end we pay for all this.

When you order something via you local hardware store they don't always go direct to the manufacturer but through their warehouse system. All middlemen. This adds to the overall cost.

This whole GST thing is more about the retail stores trying to bring in a level of protectionism and little to do with anything else.
ebay: SIEG C2 Mini Metal Lathe $AU705 includes delivery
H&F : SIEG C2 Mini Metal Lathe $AU825 not including delivery
both prices with GST..
With the H&F lathe it would cost me about another $150 on top just for delivery. Go figure.