Amazon purchases and new GST Rules

[FenceFurniture]

I would be mightily interested to know how much Company Tax is paid by Harvey Norman. Not the Franchisees, or GH personally (although I'll bet that is way down), but the actual company. Do they pay their fair share willingly or do they do what so many other Corporations in Australia do and bury the income offshore through a gazillion companies all wrapped up in spaghetti?

There would be somebody who has the skills to find that out.

If GH has the country's best interests at heart before his own then I will be very very surprised. I'll be even more surprised if the whinging stops now.

[Beardy]

Maybe it is not so much about the GST revenue aspect but more used as a tool to try and make purchasing from O/S less appealing? The more money that stays in the country the more times it goes through the GST collection point to continue raising revenue.
It is very hard to come down on the legal tax “ fraud” of the bigger end of town even if they wanted to as if the terms become unfavourable for them here they will just pack up shop and operate from another more lucrative country and our economy suffers from the result.
The way I see it, I am not that fussed about how much income tax they pay even if they don’t pay any at all. The reality is that these type of people pay much more tax than we will ever pay via other tax levies, just not via income tax.
Look at the luxury car tax, land tax, the tax on their luxury boats etc not to mention all the GST they are paying on their disposable income day to day. Take that to the next layer of the jobs they have created and the tax stream that comes from those people so bigger picture they pay plenty of tax.....just not the one the media likes to focus on

[Cal]

I wasn’t meaning the individuals involved ie CEO’s etc as their income is due to the stupidity of the board and the shareholders, I mean the companies/corporations should be held accountable for the tax that is payable for the income that has derived from purchases that occur within Australia. None of that income should be allowed to be sent to off shore bank accounts in tax free countries as pure cream. That is the legal fraud I am talking about.

[aldav]

Cal's observations of his experience in the photography field are very interesting. We're a small market and even collectives of retailers didn't have the buying power to purchase at the 'right' price and yet the manufacturers find it necessary to set up as local distributors to ensure as much of the profit as possible comes directly back to them. Equipment in the photography field has changed enormously in the last 30 years, digital and all that, and margins, at the retail level, would appear to be more slim than they have ever been, but are the manufacturers making bigger margins than ever? H'mm, there must be a dollar in it somewhere and maybe it's just that the dollar has moved further up the chain.

Even though we're a small market there are a lot more buyers of cameras than there is of the specialist woodworking tools that we're concerned about.

[Cal]

There probably is money in it otherwise the manufacturers would just give up, as an interesting aside or insight to the digital revolution Nikon almost went to the wall near the beginning for trying to develop there own ccd sensor. Nikon initially were in the development of sensors with Kodak and Sony and once Sony got a handle on it all started to develop there sensor using Nikon cameras as they did not have still camera experience of their own. The partnership lasted about 10 years and Nikon were developing their own sensor without Sony knowing, Nikon eventually released a camera with their own sensor after throwing every last cent at the technology. The reason behind it was for high speed action photography, the processor that Sony were using could not handle the data the sensor was throwing at it fast enough to be useful for the demands of sports photography, anyway the Nikon sensor/processor worked well but it sent Nikon close to the point of bankruptcy. Nikon learned a valuable lesson and shared their technology with Sony who were able to then streamline the sensor and production while Nikon dug itself out of a rather large hole. Sony went on to buy out Minolta and the rest is as it stands today. Canon and Sony are the big boys on the block and have other streams of income unlike Nikon (who still do a lot with their lens technology)
I think it is still far tougher now than what it has ever been in business, there have been a huge quantity of companies taking over other companies in the last 20-30 years compared to in the past, just look at the automotive industry. There are more expectations of companies needing to turn an increasingly large profit for shareholders and directors and it just keeps snowballing, no longer are companies happy to have the same turnover/profit as the last financial year, they have to better it by what ever means it takes. Humans are a silly animal really, need, want, have to have. Richest one to the grave wins, apparently

[ian]

I don’t really understand where the government is going with the GST thing either, if we sell an item from Australia to somewhere overseas we and the buyer are quite with our rights to not apply GST on the item no matter what the price is. T
snip
The government and big business wanted and I guess needed to be part of the global economy but they don’t want the people to be a part of it.

oh I don't think that is the case.
Business (little and big) are part of the global economy, but it's not a "level playing field" (if such a thing exists) if consumers can slip by some of big business's costs.

with small value imports (<$1000), the "people" (and micro businesses) have been avoiding paying GST that any operation larger than a micro business cannot avoid because the larger businesses import quantities well above the current (to June 30) low value cut off.

Here in Canada, the low value cut-off is $20.
While no reasonable person should object to paying GST on a low value import, the collection of this GST should not be allowed to become a profit line item for the shipper.
For example, for goods entering Canada, UPS charge a sliding fee to "custom clear" and pay the GST on your behalf. The fee varies from $7.00 for a $21 pair of ear buds, to $51.70 for a package valued at $200 to $350, to $77.35 for a package valued at $750 to $1000. It's very difficult to see how UPS's costs vary by the value of the package. And because each of their delivery trucks is effectively a bond store, the duty itself is not payable till after a package is delivered and the duty collected so no monies are advanced on a customer's behalf.
And the other quirk. The end customer is allowed to take the UPS paperwork to Canada Customs and self-clear the shipment, in which case no "document preparation" payment is due to UPS.

what's the saying about ducks ?

[justonething]

If equity is the real issue then the Canada model should be adopted. Australia post according to afr is claiming it will cost 900 million to collect the projected 300m. Scmo is not open about the cost and issues involved with a foreign entity collecting gst. How's Amazon compensated? Amazon perhaps doesn't want to set a precedent of collecting taxes for foreign countries and the Oz market is not significant enough. I think this half cocked idea will back fire if it hasn't already. eBay on the other hand is collecting thru their .com.au domain and many items will be claimed as used anyway. It's all about pleasing large political doners like Gerry.

[FenceFurniture]

It's all about pleasing large political doners like Gerry.

That's the long and the short of it, and is just another reason why all political donations should be banned - individuals and corporations.

Ian, I take it by "micro-businesses" you mean those under $75k turnover? GST is completely irrelevant for businesses larger than that because they claim back what they paid after they charge for their own product or service. However, for a <$75k the GST is a totally added cost that is not redeemable.

[BobL]

Here in Canada, the low value cut-off is $20.

It was here as well.

Back in the very early 90's I mail ordered some software (mainly games) from a Singapore PC shop advertised in a PC magazine. The software came on about 40, 5/25" floppy disks and AP called me in to ascertain the value of goods addressed to me as there was no invoice or value declaration with the goods themselves. When they called me in they showed me into a small room and shoved a brown paper covered parcel across a desk at me and asked me if I had ordered these goods. I immediately became worried that something else might be in the package but all there was only the discs with hand written labels on them. None of the AP officers had any idea of the value of the games themselves. I had no receipt so a value could not be determined but it then dawned on me I had a credit card statement and the original advertisement in a PC magazine at home so I went and got them. I forget how much I paid but it was something silly like $1 per disk which was about the price of the disk itself. An AP officer took the credit card statement, magazine and disks away and asked me to wait. About an hour later a senior AP officer came back and asked me some more questions. Then the original officer came back and said that Duty had to be paid on the disks themselves but as the duty came to <$20 there was nothing payable. It cost me 3 hours of time all up and as I didn't want to go through all that again I never bought any more software this way.

[aldav]

However, for a <$75k the GST is a totally added cost that is not redeemable.

While that is true and businesses not registered for GST have to make a margin on that unrecoverable cost they don't have to add the GST to any margin they charge on that initial cost of goods. So at the very least the final consumer isn't paying GST on the sellers net profit from the sale and there are possibly going to be some inputs that come into the sellers costs that do not have GST levied on them as well.

If the government was really serious about GST avoidance they'd be doing something about the black economy. The introduction of the GST was supposed to wipe out the black economy - what a joke! It actually made it a whole lot easier and more attractive space to work in. The only reason you don't hear Gerry Harvey bleating about it is because the people who do operate there aren't his direct competitors. So, like everything else, it all comes down to self interest.

[woodPixel]

I see something deeply sinister in all this.

Ians post #96 and BobLs #99 aren't too far off the mark.

Dark, dark, days are ahead with debt. The governments of the world will do absolutely anything and everything to keep their own ponzis alive. This is but one part of it. People have no conception how much debt is held now - it is utterly staggering.

Import GST and trade imposts are the beginning of an attempt to collapse imports to correct balance of trade and manage currency exchanges. People are incorrect to think this is simply the government levelling the playing field on taxes. It doesn't take too much imagination to see how "handling fees" or other punitive levies and go-slow tactics will be added to items from China (?) or other "unfair" trading countries....

[ian]

Ian, I take it by "micro-businesses" you mean those under $75k turnover? GST is completely irrelevant for businesses larger than that because they claim back what they paid after they charge for their own product or service. However, for a <$75k the GST is a totally added cost that is not redeemable.

Yes, I'm thinking about those "businesses" that effectively operate from the kitchen table and have one employee (the owner).

around the time this thread started there was a side bar about one such business that the Amazon change would put "out of business" because the owner would no longer be able to source the goods sold by the business.

[ian]

If the government was really serious about GST avoidance they'd be doing something about the black economy. The introduction of the GST was supposed to wipe out the black economy - what a joke! It actually made it a whole lot easier and more attractive space to work in. The only reason you don't hear Gerry Harvey bleating about it is because the people who do operate there aren't his direct competitors. So, like everything else, it all comes down to self interest.

I hear that there's a proposal to withdraw the $50 and $100 notes from circulation to counter the black economy.
The thought being that paying more than a few hundred dollars with $20s is impractical.

[ian]

I see something deeply sinister in all this.

Import GST and trade imposts are the beginning of an attempt to collapse imports to correct balance of trade and manage currency exchanges. People are incorrect to think this is simply the government levelling the playing field on taxes. It doesn't take too much imagination to see how "handling fees" or other punitive levies and go-slow tactics will be added to items from China (?) or other "unfair" trading countries....

ah com'on.

It's only Trump that is using the War of 1812 to justify trade sanctions against Canadian Aluminium.

[woodPixel]

ah com'on.

It's only Trump that is using the War of 1812 to justify trade sanctions against Canadian Aluminium.

You Canadians burnt thier collective psyche deeply with that one.

They aren't letting it go

Sneaky Canadians!