RE: [AH] new tax issues for selling items to the UK

From Wheaton
Sent Sun, Mar 10th 2019, 05:00

> From: Adrian Corston [xxxxxxxx@xxxxxx.xxx]
> Sent: Sunday 10 March 2019 11:54
> Subject: Re: [AH] new tax issues for selling items to the UK
>
> In Australia there is a recent new model, where retailers (ebay, amazon e=
tc) now add the 10% GST (our
> equivalent of the UK's VAT) to all sales (regardless of where the seller =
is or the used/new status) and collect it
> from the buyer to send through to the Australian tax office. A few months=
 ago when this was introduced
> everything on those online sites went up 10% in price.

That 10% GST being applied by the overseas seller only applies when the ite=
m is a low valued item, up to 1000AUD, not to all sales.

It also only applies when the seller makes 75,000AUD or more in sales in a =
12 month period that are connected with Australia, which is why it applies =
to those large sellers such as eBay and Amazon.


> The proceeds go to our politicians, who use it to give themselves pay ris=
es and huge allowances, hand that
> money to multinational conglomerates as "subsidies" in return for kickbac=
ks, purchase extravagant properties
> for themselves and generally line their own pockets.

GST doesn't go to our politicians, it is collected by the Federal Governmen=
t, and is distributed to our state and territory governments, and is includ=
ed in their taxation revenue.

What the states and territories do with their taxation revenue, including t=
heir share of the GST that is distributed by the Federal Government, might =
be debatable, but what you describe is not what the GST goes directly towar=
ds.


> There's a separate tax leveraged and collected by Customs officials when =
importing goods into Australia, which
> has an AUD$1000 minimum threshold, below which it does not apply (althoug=
h there have been recent talks of
> lowering or eliminating this altogether).

That is the same tax, it is GST.


> There are over 10,000 different categories of goods, with a wide variety =
of levy rates.

Those are additional import duties on some items. They are different to, an=
d in addition to, the 10% GST.


Simon
Canberra
AUSTRALIA
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