GST on postage

[romali1960]

Why are we being charged GST on postage when the Ebay info link on GST states that international mail is exempt?

[outback_blends]

Ebay charge a fee on postage. The GST you are paying is the gst -on the fee- not the postage itself. 

[gutterpunkz05]

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@romali1960 wrote:

Why are we being charged GST on postage when the Ebay info link on GST states that international mail is exempt?

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I think you will find that you are refering to International mail originating from Australia, that is exports.

The New GST on low value imports, also applies to the import  postage/shipping costs.

[kopenhagen5 · Accepted solution]

The GST is on total invoice at point of sale being for Goods and Sevices.

Shipping/postage is a service.

[khulu74]

Because of our dic$#head liberal politicians and the money hungry GHarvey..especially our lib. government thinks that it is ok and easy to get money from small-man’s pocket, we are an easy target for them..so instead of decreasing the auspost’s int. postage costs and giving a chance all Australian online sellers be competitive in their platforms, boosting their appearance in the searches (like the German government done a good improvement on Deutsche Posts postage cost about 2 years ago, they create/put a new letter package service up to 250/500gr bracket and halved the int. Postage prices, since then nearly all german ebay sellers come #1 in my postage + price lowest searches on ebay) Oh yes, there is import tax in Germay an in the UK as well as in EU countries but there is always exemptions (like in Germany, Import duties do not arise where gifts worth not more than 45 euros are sent by one private individual to another, as long as certain conditions are complied with) by the way German, UK and the other EU countries governments must be stupid as they don't push the online selling platforms in their countries to collect tax from its users like our government..we the Australian small online sellers weren’t competitive against ebay global & individual sellers, but we could find and buy goods cheaper  from overseas and re-sell them in domestic market to make some money and keep the market afloat. Now our buying abilities restricted by lib. Governmet. So they hit small casual sellers, bargain hunters, collectors like me. Anyway we will see clearly the impact of this stupidity in coming 5-6 months time..

[topogon]

Aus Post say there is no GST on international postage.  I too believe eby are wrong here.

"Australia has a postal system which is reasonably efficient. One oddity of the system is that G.S.T. (Goods and Services Tax) applies to domestic postage, but not to international postage. "

[k1ooo-slr-sales]

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@topogon wrote:

Aus Post say there is no GST on international postage.  I too believe eby are wrong here.

"Australia has a postal system which is reasonably efficient. One oddity of the system is that G.S.T. (Goods and Services Tax) applies to domestic postage, but not to international postage. "

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there have been members who have posted on these boards that “there is no GST on international postage” as an argument against eBay charging GST on the postage paid by international sellers selling to Australians i.e. the overseas sellers are paying for international postage from their own country to post to Australia.

The GST exemption on international postage is for postage paid to Australia post to post an item from Australia to an overseas location.

When eBay charge GST on the fees they charge Australian sellers they are not charging GST on postage, they are charging GST on the fees they charge.

[violet_coloured_girl]

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@k1ooo-slr-sales wrote:

... they are not charging GST on postage, they are charging GST on the fees they charge.

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And what fees are these? They are **postage** fees. 

Australia does not charge (nor does it have any right to charge) GST on French postage. They only have the right to charge GST on **Australian** postage ("Australia Post" postage), but they have decided to grant an exemption to that, so GST is not applicable to any postage. 

So, the application of GST to postage by eBay in inappropriate and possibly illegal.

[domino-710]

No - they are not postage fees - nor GST.

eBay charges fees on the whole sale amount which includes the postage.

[padi*0409]

Maybe vcg is in need of a Rocket Scientist Dom ?  🤣