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Well, that's it for Australians buying goods from overseas

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Alan Edward Klein said:
Smells like a 10% tariff on American goods shipped to Australia. Once Trump gets wind of this, he'll tell the Australian government that we're going to add 15% on all Australian goods shipped to the US. Then they' be a side deal where Australia and America will both drop these tariffs and you'll be able to buy again from Amazon. Be patient. Of course Trump won't complain about the Australian tariff on EU goods.
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BrianShaw said:
huh?
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Brian: What's not to understand? Australia is imposing a tariff on American goods to make Australia goods more competitive in Australia. In order to have an equal and fair playing field, America could impose a similar tariff against Australian goods sold in America. Of course Trump might want 15%, higher than Australia's, just to make Australia want to stop doing it. Trump always punches harder to make a point and get his way.
 
Of course he doesn't care if Australia continues the tariff on EU goods. That will help America compete against the EU by making our goods sold in Australia less than Europe's. But he's not going to fight for Europe. He'll let them fight for themselves.
 
Don't get me started on FATCA.... I work for an organisation that develops reports and extracts for Financial Institutions. Implementing FATCA reporting has been and still is a pain in the ass.

Now we have to deal with what's called the Common Reporting Standard, which will enable similar reports for any country.....
 
Alan Edward Klein said:
Brian: What's not to understand? Australia is imposing a tariff on American goods to make Australia goods more competitive in Australia. In order to have an equal and fair playing field, America could impose a similar tariff against Australian goods sold in America. Of course Trump might want 15%, higher than Australia's, just to make Australia want to stop doing it. Trump always punches harder to make a point and get his way.
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It isn't a tariff, it is GST. Goods and Services Tax, and applies to ALL non-exempt transactions, whether the product was made locally or across the globe. It is NOT a tax applied to "imports from the US". Not really sure how that is difficult to understand.
 
Alan Edward Klein said:
Brian: What's not to understand? Australia is imposing a tariff on American goods to make Australia goods more competitive in Australia. ....
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I don’t understand what 45 or national retaliation has to do with the discussion. Australia wants their citizens to pay tax on stuff bought abroad. They think foreign retailers will act as their agents. California did that for out-of-state purchases because we weren’t voluntary reporting those purchases and paying the tax we owe. I don’t know what prior tax laws are on the books for our friends down under. US retailers either will act as a tax agent for the Australia government or they won’t. I doubt that any retaliatory measures are even being contemplated, by anyone but you. I feel for the Australians but...
 
hoffy said:
BTW, this is not specifically about American goods. Don't turn this into something is not.
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Good clarification.

Question: is the requirement to pay tax on foreign goods a totally new concept in your country or something that’s been unsuccessful on a voluntary basis, like we experienced in California with out-of-state purchases?
 
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hoffy said:
It's not new, but the threshold was purchases over $1000, as it was deemed impractical to retrieve amounts under that, due to the cost.
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No longer impractical if you make someone else do it.
 
hoffy said:
It's not new, but the threshold was purchases over $1000, as it was deemed impractical to retrieve amounts under that, due to the cost.
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For us it was a single line on our tax return: “how much stuff did you buy and didn’t pay CA sales tax but now want to pay voluntarily”. Very practical and a low-cost appproach but I don’t know anyone who answered that question honestly... or like me I just didn’t have the supporting records didn’t feel that guessing was in the spirit of the tax code.
 
hoffy said:
It's not new, but the threshold was purchases over $1000, as it was deemed impractical to retrieve amounts under that, due to the cost.
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The government couldn't agree on who and where any such tax (GST) should be collected on the below-AUD$1,000 threshold. It was like beating their heads against a brick wall and ending in a stalemate. But not this time, and our illustrious treasurer Scott Morrison (ScoMo) was on TV last night saying he was not going to budge against Amazon's posturing and protests and they should "pay their way and taxes like everybody else here". Oh, listen to him...
 
Any goods over $1000 get GST as well as some import tax.
When GST was first introduced here domestically, I thought it would kill off business for awhile, but didnt really only increased the amount of people wanting to pay cash and not record a transaction. Which was OK on small jobs (im a plumber BTW), but wasnt really doable on larger jobs because you could get audited and would have to justify money going out for materials and why you had a big boat in the driveway and very little income. But the biggest pain was the extra bookwork, I had to collect the GST and pay the government quarterly (still do), initially wasnt too bad, take about a half day and could do your self, eventually they made it so complicated I had to pay for an accountant to do it for me. Im just a small one man operation, imagine how much of a head ache it is for larger business. Cant imagine too many overseas companies wanting the extra workload for small volume sales.
 
I wish I had a big boat in the driveway and very little income because I have a big income but no boat in the driveway. The grass is always greener...

Hopefully your GST is a single rate. I once had a small business and had to collect/pay sales tax on a per county basis... and there are just too many counties and tax rates to make that practical for a business as small as ours.
 
hoffy said:
From what I understand, the other mob weren't against it either.
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No they were not. There will be plenty of grandstanding from both sides over the coming week.

eBay said yesterday that they have no issues with the new GST rules. Personally I reckon this is a pure dummy spit from Amazon.
 
BrianShaw said:
I wish I had a big boat in the driveway and very little income because I have a big income but no boat in the driveway. The grass is always greener...

Hopefully your GST is a single rate. I once had a small business and had to collect/pay sales tax on a per county basis... and there are just too many counties and tax rates to make that practical for a business as small as ours.
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Australia's GST is still much cheaper than New Zealand's! That is why every time we go to New Zealand we wonder about the comparatively higher prices there. No great mystery then...
 
hoffy said:
Well, good news for now. Someone on a Facebook group asked B&H if they were going to stop shipping - they have come back and said, not in the foreseeable future. Never say never, but that does seem good.
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But did they say if they are going to collect the Australian GST and pay it to your government?
 
There are services in the U.S. where you get a U.S. address, order what you want, send it there, and they then ship it to you.


Kent in SD
 
BrianShaw said:
Good clarification.

Question: is the requirement to pay tax on foreign goods a totally new concept in your country or something that’s been unsuccessful on a voluntary basis, like we experienced in California with out-of-state purchases?
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Until recently there was not a requirement to pay goods and services tax (GST) for overseas purchases under A$1000. The current government has been under great pressure by traditional brick and mortar chain stores to fix that loophole. No matter which side of the political divide you are on, both sides support the changes. So, no it is not an entirely new concept, merely a tightening of the current tax law.

However it is really a very complicated minefield that should have been left alone as being too difficult to implement. Amazon just decided it was too difficult to implement and simply geo-blocked the entire Australian market, referring them to the local Amazon store which has about 10% of the range available at the US based operation. A lot of freight redirection services are going to get a lot of future business as most often it is still cheaper than local prices here in Australia.

Another major commercial enterprise has said they will comply with the adjusted GST law, but it remains to be seen if others follow suit
 
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