Really from Australia?

[symo10]

I puchased an item off ebay and the listing says item location is in Australia so I buy it then ask for a GST tax invoice so I can claim GST  only to get told they only have the order invoice so I look into their store and it says

(Based in China) how do they get away with saying in the listing they are from Australia when they are not?

[everard6920]

They are probably based in China but have an Australian warehouse. I'm not sure how that works in terms of their obligations to provide a tax invoice. Australian businesses that are not registered for GST still need to provide one if asked, but idk about businesses based overseas that are selling to Australian customers as they are. Hopefully someone else will be along that knows more.

If your item ends up coming from China you can report them for misrepresentation, though.

[davewil1964]

Only Australian businesses REGISTERED for GST can provide a tax invoice, I believe.

The rest can provide receipts/invoices, but as they don't charge GST, the buyer can't claim GST input credits.

[everard6920]

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@davewil1964 wrote:

Only Australian businesses REGISTERED for GST can provide a tax invoice, I believe.

The rest can provide receipts/invoices, but as they don't charge GST, the buyer can't claim GST input credits.

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No, I had this discussion with my accountant (I am not GST registered). Unless I'm hallucinating, he said I need to provide a tax invoice if asked, but I must write "no GST payable" or something to that effect (I don't have the template in front of me).

Otherwise, you are correct - ordinarily I provide a standard invoice/receipt (that does NOT say "tax invoice").

ETA: Actually I just checked and you're right - I still don't put "tax invoice" at the top even if they request one, and I just put "no GST payable". A partial hallucination on my part. Nobody has ever requested one so I've never had to do it

[jellybirddesigns · Accepted solution]

Many Chinese sellers claim their products are located within Australia, but even if that is the case, you need to see where they are actually REGISTERED before purchasing.

Not all Australian sellers are registered for GST anyway - sellers only need to be if their sales are over the threshold of AUD$75K annually.

[bromad01]

If an overseas seller has stock located in Australia, ebay allows them to appear in searches even though the seller is not actually located in Australia. You can't eliminate these sellers when you do a search because you can't filter by seller location. You can only filter by 'product location'.  As a general rule of thumb, the overseas sellers use photographs with the words 'Australia AUS Shipping' and even use Australian flags etc in the images which is misleading as it gives the buyer the impression that they are Australian sellers. The only way to try to reduce the overseas sellers from your searches is to sort by price lowest to highest. The overseas sellers generally sell only new products and they sell them so cheap that Australian sellers can't compete on price. Secondly, the seller often, but not always, has a large number of transactions next to their username along with a feedback rate of less than 100%. Thirdly, if you click on their username you will be able to see where the seller is located. Additionally it should be noted that if you do purchase a 'brand' label item from one of these overseas sellers there is a chance that the product is a fake.