GST for items sold by Australian sellers

[foxinsox2000]

If an Australian seller becomes registered for GST, how it does it work when their items are sold worldwide?

For example, if an item was formerly priced at $50, the seller would change the price to $55, and pay $5 to the ATO if it sells to an AU buyer.

However, if the item sells overseas then no GST is payable. Ethically the price should be $50 for overseas buyers, $55 for AU buyers.

Am I correct?

How does eBay facilitate this?

Or is it one of those areas that they say 'not our problem, try to find a workaround like with all the other inconsitencies with the eBay platform.'?

This is not a question about how to set your price point, it's about how to ethically and transparently manage pricing, tax, and the global market. 

Is there a correct, legal, ethical way to manage this? Or does the addition of the GST component for AU buyers just end up as something O/S buyers have to wear, unless the seller chooses to refund the GST to every O/S buyer?`

Are eBay a global marketplace that can't yet manage these ethical and legal trivialites? 

[digital*ghost]

eBay don't have a solution for it, but the simplest way is to use the additional funds to subsidise postage costs, so in your example reduce postage by $5 to international customers.

[clarry100]

What DG proposes seems like a simple solution.

It shouldn't have to be this way, but ebay don't facilitate it at all.

Just a general observation on your pricing model, if I may...

You don't have to add the full GST 10% onto prices when you first register for GST.

This is because you can claim back the GST you pay out on business related expenses.

This reduces the actual amount you owe to the ATO. Typically its somewhere closer to 5% actually.

If you add on the full 10% for GST but don't pass this full amount on to the ATO then technically you would be acting illegally.

You (or your BAS consultant) would need to do up a pricing model for your particular items/business to figure out where you really sit.

[brerrabbit585]

Your statement is more than a bit misleading, clarry, because you pay 1/11th of your sale price to the govt in gst, then you claim back the gst on your costs.  You don't actually pay one first and then claim the other back, you just deduct one from the payment you make, but you still have to add 1/10th to the price.  The way your statement reads, you don't have to add 10% onto the price.

[meliquidation]

I was recently in account settings and I came across something asking for a tax update (ie ABN).

As far as I understand it Ebay won't withhold GST (and remit directly to tax office) on items australian sellers sell when the Australian seller is already registered for GST. If that's the case then there wont be any change at all for those Australian sellers and your question becomes irrelevant.

I'm actually a tax agent and that's what I've heard coming down the grapevine from the tax side of things when this was originally planned. It's always possible that something has changed that I've missed as I've been bogged down and am currently a few months behind my tax knowledge but that's my understanding of it.

[meliquidation]

Any seller with turnover over $75k per annum already should be registered for GST. We are - and remit the appropriate amounts to the ATO on our quarterly BAS. I dont believe Ebay will charge 10% on our listings as that would double the GST the ato is getting and would not be correct.

Actually - on that topic it's worth asking ebay. I will ask now.

[meliquidation]

https://sellercentre.ebay.com.au/content/gst-fees-ebaycomau

As I said before: Australia Ebay businesses already registered for GST will be exempt from the change.

[meliquidation]

Here is a picture of our seller dashboard. Note the bit in the red rectangle (says we are exempt from the new regime).

[digital*ghost]

@meliquidation - that's for the GST on fees charged by eBay, which was introduced last year.

[foxinsox2000]

Thanks to all who replied, took me a while to get back to the forum.

It was really just a question about the ability (or otherwise) to list "Inc GST" pricing for AU buyers and automatically calculate "Ex GST" for overseas buyers. 

Many webstores do this. Just wondered if the eBay platform supports it, but as advised, no it doesn't.

Thanks!!