Netflix tax

[stickerswa]

Just got an email from ebay...

From 1 July 2017, Goods and Services Tax (GST) will apply to fees on eBay.com.au, due to new legislation in Australia (the "Netflix Tax").

Businesses registered for GST will not be affected by this change if you register your Australian Business Number (ABN) with eBay here.

Anyone else feel a fee increase coming to cover this....

[digital*ghost]

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@going*gone wrote:
If Ebay are going to add 10 % gst to sellers fees, that would be a total of about 30% including PayPal fees.
If your cost item is $80 and you sell it for $100 you actually loose $10.00 and so much time listing packing and sending....Ebay need to make their invoice GST inclusive otherwise it's ...bye bye eBay from me

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eBay's fee on a $100 sale is a maximum of $9.90 if the highest FVF rate is charged, 9.9%. 

If GST is added to the fee, it is 10% of $9.90, rather than an extra 10% of the sale price, making the total FVF increase by 99c to $10.89, so the whole amount paid would go from 9.9% to 10.89%. 

This may make featured stores a little more attractive to some sellers who are not registered to collect GST, as the lower FVF rate you're paying, the lower the overall increase will be (eg if you sell in the higher FVF categories, the increase will be 0.855% instead of 0.95%, or an extra 95c or so saved for every $100 in turnover). 

Marginal, I know, but it will add up if the volume is there. 

[heihachi_73]

All done in a way to screw over the casual sellers, of course.

[lm-entertainment]

the email is most certainly authentic. you should have a message in your ebay message inbox which shows the same message which was sent in the email. 

[theforevergarden]

The whole thing is a joke in that the message doesn't in any way convey how it works, how it'll affect any one without an ABN (ie is 10% charged at time of sale or is it invoiced? meaning the gst charge comes out of sellers profits and so they should look into raising their prices). It's just an extremely poorly worded message that lacks context entirely.

[character_parties_aus]

Your fees are the same. The government is now correctly charging GST on the fees. As they should have been for a long time. 

[healthandstyle]

I'm kind of confused about the wording of their email claiming that if you register your tax ID with them you are "Tax Exempt".  Nobody is "Exempt" from the GST for Australian Transactions, however as an ABN holder who is registered for GST, you would be able to offset the GST paid on your monthly eBay account against the GST collected from your sales.

If you are a casual seller, yes, your fees just will go up by 10% to include the GST.

The only ebay fees that would be exempt from GST would be those charged to you on a transaction when somebody makes a purchase from you who is located overseas.

The thing that irked me most about eBay and the GST was the way they claimed the GST Credits from Australia post for the ebay shipping and didn't pass these on to the customer who purchased shipping through eBay because all the billing came through from their Swiss entity.  We also had to pay an  additional 3.5% currency surcharge on our credit cards for their bills which were from an overseas merchant.

Ebay's handling of this whole debacle is almost as bad as the Government's, and we really need a clear and concise statement about how eBay will be implementing this.

[bexhilleastbourne]

Yes all fees will get 10% gst added they will have to show the ato they charge each seller GST.  Digital goods and services means anything sold online physical or digital, it should really be called the Online sellers tax because that is exactly what it is. And only sellers with an abn will be able to recoup the charge. And overseas sellers on eBay will need an abn to sell to Australian sellers. But this form is stupid, can't fit our full business name in the field and doesn't accept abn. Should do what PayPal did when they required an abn. 

Just ask us to update business information instead have a field for abn, tfn, acn and a box to tick gst registered or not tick the box. Ebay is making it more complicated than it needs to be!

[bexhilleastbourne]

Can't yet charge us GST  cause they aren't registered either. What was the point of the email?

[healthandstyle]

The ABN is cancelled. But it's kind of exposing their incompetence. Perhaps their 109 staff in Australia getting an average salary of $315,000 each were so busy advising on market penetration strategies that they simply overlooked this little problem.

http://theconversation.com/google-facebook-fall-into-line-on-tax-but-ebay-remains-defiant-76946

[porcelain_dolls_by_me]

Relative to the ABN page on Ebay this is quoted:

"Businesses registered for VAT (Value Added Tax),GST (Goods and Services Tax) or other applicable indirect/consumption taxes can use their tax or other country specific identification number to register for tax exempt status on eBay. This allows businesses to pay eBay fees without domestic VAT, GST or similar taxes being applied, where applicable."

I was not aware that simply because you are registered for GST this provides you with tax exempt satus?

Rather, you still pay the GST but are able to claim it back as an input credit when you do your BAS.  (Being registered for BAS means of course you need to charge GST (and pay to the ATO) GST on all of your domestic sales.  Sales to overseas parties are exempt from GST.