@mckenzm8obz wrote:
(insert Necropost apology here).
It would be interesting to see the statistics for this. Are ebay breaking it down by vendor? I would, just out of spite and give them a huge file to process.
Ebay does not have to break anything down by vendor. The ATO deems ebay to be the seller of all goods imported from overseas and therefore make ebay responsible for the GST.
We have long suspected that a certain major supplier of software known to ship from Singapore was charging 10% "tax" on products under the old screen free limit and just keeping it. This law stops that kind of thing.
But for ebay sales it looks like the ebay ABN number is being used regardless of the vendor. So every ebayer selling to Australia does not get their own ABN. It is basically a defacto stamp duty on mail order. The ABN is an umbrella.
Overseas sellers cannot have an ABN.....that is an Australian Business Number for Australin sellers. That is why the GST is collected by ebay using their ABN.
The only consolation is that somebody selling second hand tat at less that $10 a week is not having to bear the cost of collecting and accounting for GST.
An overseas seller selling less than $75000 to Australians would never have to pay GST, just as Australian sellers with the same turnover do not pay GST.
Where it becomes fuzzy is for "local" vendors (cough, splutter), shipping from offshore, with no ABN, there is no GST?
Especially if those goods are GST exempt locally, or the member turns over less than $75K.
Why is it fuzzy? There are rules and if the seller follows those rules they will pay GST if appropriate.
It is a well known fact that there are always some imports that will slip through the cracks....even the ATO accepts that.
Amazon don't like it , because of course you are going to deal directly with their "affiliate", and they are not getting enough (or any?) of the GST as a commission. Even lottery agents get compensated.
No seller gets any of the GST as a commission.....it is forbidden. It is collected from the buyer and all of it is remitted to the ATO.
Amazon i not alone in not liking the GST.....I doubt that any business person likes it but it is a fact of doing business in Australia.
And I am still not going to buy locally and pay 20-30 times as much for the same product just to avoid GST.
How do you know whether you are avoiding the GST by buying locally? If the seller is registered for GST in Australia then you ARE paying GST.
NB. I am also getting charged for overseas purchases I do not land in Australia (not by ebay), so there is that too. Thankfully less than the local VAT of 23%, and thankfully not having to pay both. This works well for me as I am getting a discount.
???? what has VAT got to do with sales in or to Australia?
