@retrowise wrote:Since Ebay items from overseas now got a lot more expensive with not only 10% tax on items but also on shipping, how does it work with other overseas sellers? I buy a lot of stuff from various sellers, but mostly not from Ebay. None of my sellers ever asked me to pay the extra tax. I doubt that some two bit small dealer from overseas would even know or care about our GST tax.
eBay is collecting the tax because eBay themselves have been designated the vendor, rather than each individual seller (this is why it will apply on other, similar international sites, but not necessarily on smaller sites).
If an international seller has a turnover in Australia of $75k or more, then they are required to collect the GST from Australian buyers (on low value imports). If their turnover is below that threshold, they are not required to collect it (ebay's "turnover" is obviously much higher than this, hence why it applies here).
That also means if a seller on eBay also has their own website or similar, and their Australian turnover is below the threshold, they certainly won't collect the GST elsewhere - it will only be required here on eBay.
I've made several international purchases since July 1st, and have only been charged the GST on eBay so far (I actually registered for GST myself, for various reasons, but one of them was because most of my supplier's are overseas and none of them were going to add GST, when I know full well that at least a couple of them would be obliged to. At least this way, being registered, my orders from them will be officially exempt anyway, and they stay on the level, as it were - I'm not recommending this in any way at all BTW, I had many other reasons for doing it, but just thought I'd share an anecdote of my experiences with some rather big international sellers, and at the same time mention I'm doing the opposite of taking advantage... 
).
