Amazon purchases and new GST Rules

[crowie]

Has anyone else received this email as copied below from Amazon with the changes to the Australian GST laws??
*************************************************************************************************

As a result of changes to Australian GST law, on 1 July 2018 Amazon’s international shopping options for Australian customers will change.

While we regret any inconvenience this may cause, from 1 July we will be redirecting Australian customers from our international Amazon sites to amazon.com.au where you can shop for products sold by Amazon US on the new Amazon Global Store, available today. We have taken this step to provide our customers with continued access to international selection and allow us to remain compliant with the law which requires us to collect and remit GST on products sold on Amazon sites that are shipped from overseas.

Amazon Global Store will allow Australian customers to shop on amazon.com.au for over four million items that were previously only accessible on amazon.com. This selection is in addition to the more than 60 million products that are already available on amazon.com.au across 23 categories, including books, fashion, toys, and electronics.

To welcome you to amazon.com.au, and thank you for choosing to shop with us, we are offering you a $20 voucher to redeem against your next purchase on amazon.com.au of items sold and shipped by Amazon AU. Just include your unique promotional code below at checkout when purchasing eligible items (see full terms and conditions below).

Thank you for choosing to shop with Amazon.

[woodPixel]

https://www.news.com.au/finance/busi...cee7046f63b894


...In an email to customers, Amazon said “while we regret any inconvenience this may cause”, it would redirect Australian customers from its international sites to Amazon.com.au, “where you can shop for products sold by Amazon US on the new Amazon Global Store, available today”.

No doubt at Australian prices.....

[ian]

most common Google search term for the next 6 weeks -- How do I get around Amazon's geoblocking?

[old1955]

It’s in the online papers now, Peter.


Missed woodPixel’s thread link.

[bueller]

I’m sure this will result in fairer prices for Australians. Not like retailers were gouging us before online shopping became popular right?

Lord I’m sick of this government.

[ian]

I’m sure this will result in fairer prices for Australians. Not like retailers were gouging us before online shopping became popular right?

Lord I’m sick of this government.

you really shouldn't blame the government

this latest is really the Gerry Harvey Tax

[damian]

It will be interesting to see how that works. As for geoblocking vpn will take care of the purchases. I use opera browser and it has built in vpn. All I have to do is open settings, click the privacy and security tab, click the vpn checkbox and all my browsing is routed internationally. Click it again and it's off again. I don't need to reboot the browser or anything. It's trivial...

They may however refuse to ship to aus off the USA site in which case a reshipper will be needed.

It's bs of course. The price difference was never 10%, more like 50%.

The other thing I've notice is that last year purchases from china were coming in maybe 2 weeks. It's now 6 - 8 weeks and I suspect it customs holding stuff up. I have no absolute proof of that. You gotta wonder....

[derekcohen]

I have just compared prices on something I purchased a while ago: audio tecnica ath-anc23 ear buds (for my wife). The Amazon (US) price was $37 (USD), which was what I paid. The Amazon (Oz) price is $123.56 (AUD). That's a hell of an exchange rate!

Regards from Perth

Derek

[chemfish]

I heard about this today, figure now is the time to spend up and buy a bunch of things that I have had sitting in my cart "until I had the cash"

It's funny how big business can happily run small business out of town but as soon as they have foreign competition they scream bloody murder.

[woodPixel]

Indeed. The Amazon prices are not equitable. Perhaps they are still working on that...

(unless a 300% markup is their actual goal).

On the China delivery speed, I've found it faster than ever.

... But today I did get a kilo blonde dewaxed shellac flakes from India, the bag has been slashed open by some ham fisted barbarian in customs. Made a right bloody mess of it!!!!

One last thought, I like the way the government is leveling the playing field by increasing taxes... After all, paying more tax is somehow "fair".

What an obscenity.

[aldav]

What about all the products that we had access to on amazon.com that aren't sold and shipped by Amazon. Note that Derek's ear buds aren't sold and shipped by Amazon on either site.

[ian]

One last thought, I like the way the government is leveling the playing field by increasing taxes... After all, paying more tax is somehow "fair".

What an obscenity.

unfortunately, put that way it just sounds like a selfish whinge.

what I believe you mean is that no reasonable person objects to paying GST on their overseas purchases. What they do object to is local wholesalers and retailers using the GST as a shield to justify markups in the order of 300% compared to the world price. That and the lack of choice. Previously the government has acted to allow parallel imports to protect Australian consumers from restricted choice and price gouging by local wholesalers and retailers. With the decision to apply GST on low value imports, the government has effectively returned price gouging to the Australian market.

[woodPixel]

I wasn't whinging - though I do like to complain

My para-quote came from several articles, such as "“This new law levels the playing field for Australian businesses, by forcing foreign businesses to pay GST,” Mr Morrison said in a statement. “The government doesn’t apologise for ensuring multinationals pay a fair amount of tax here in Australia. That tax revenue is used to fund essential services."

Perhaps I've mentioned it before, but this whole GST thing is a fiasco. To describe any tax system as fair is wrong. To claim that adding taxes to a consumers purchases from now on creates "new fairness" is wrong.

More insane, is the way they expect a foreign business to collect and remit GST to the ATO. I'd really love to see how they are going to police THAT... (unless, as I think, very dark days are coming wrt imports)

The Amazon move is very clever. Too clever by half. Thinking it through took less than 10 minutes to realise its a way of loading up the local operation with an absolute mountain of overseas debt (no taxes paid!!!), obtain a fast-tracked bulk container shipping mechanism, a government-sanctioned hammer-blow to the head of small retail businesses PLUS a means of restricting supply to increase local margains. Brilliant. In one swoop they have turned themselves into the enforced Australian distributor for 5 million extra products. Small/medium business will have no choice but to deal with them (watch Amazon strangle the supply lines!). Pure genius!!! It's the evils of Walmart in the 90's times a million.

[woodPixel]

Obviously there is some work for Amazon AU to do yet. I just thought to see what the differences are. These are in my basket for buying...

Freeman PFWS Professional Fine Wire Stapler us25.81 au161.54 (welllll.....)
3M Peltor Optime 105 earmuffs us19.88 au106.00 (guess its off to Blackwood)
Mirka 9A-241-120 6-Inch 120grit us45.00 au61.14 (not bad!)

The rest are staples for the stapler (none in stock in AU), a video capture device to save my old tape movies of the kids and a variety of milk paints.... none of which are on the site here.

Let's hope the AU site takes the order, bungs it all in a shipping contain in bulk, ships it over and local delivers en-masse. It would be a PITA to get all these things separately.

I hope local retailers somehow get on top of this.

[Beardy]

Whilst I accept we pay a premium for product, I don’t think you can compare prices from differently geared economies on a like for like basis without also looking at wages and all the other costs of business which are huge.
Australia is ridiculously expensive to do business in.