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@Anonymouswrote:

It's a great idea if it can 'catch on'.

If AusPost ( being an Australian government department ) can collect money on goods

coming from overseas it will set up a 'mechanism' for collecting money.

This mechanism can then be duplicated and tweaked to include the GST collection on incoming goods.

Even Blind Freddy could read the declared value on a customs declaration and one of

his cousins could check a few for underdeclaration and pass them on for a raft of fines.

Once both mechanisms will then take can of 'bulk' deliveries as mentioned by the Ghost.

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I don't think AP will collect it. They did a feasibility study last year and found that the cost of collection would outweigh the revenue. As per the legislation, the overseas vendor collects the GST.

As discussed last year ad nauseum, this proposal is sketchy, because you cannot force an overseas vendor to release their business details to our government (to determine if they turn over more than $75,000, and are eligible to have to collect it), and ultimately, you can't force them to collect the GST and remit it to our government.

Despite the legislation passing in January, there are still no details on HOW they're going to make overseas vendors collect tax for our government and remit it, and what happens if they don't. Do you not receive your package? Do you pay a penalty to receive it? Do they block that vendor from selling into Australia (and essentially censor our internet)?

Is it just based on all overseas vendors being transparent and honest? Because that's a ridiculous expectation.

I mean, many people in Australia are still unaware of this legislation, so I can imagine that the majority of overseas vendors have no idea. Yet the ATO site says they should "take steps to prepare" for it by July 2018. Yes, because overseas vendors regularly check the Australian Taxation website. How will they even find out about this? And even if they do, why do they care? Do you, as an Australian seller, regularly check overseas tax websites, including those in other languages?

What is the Australian government realistically going to do if some seller in China either charges it and refuses to remit it, or doesn't charge it and doesn't remit it? Times that by the millions of sellers worldwide. As I said, they're yet to explain, and there's only a few months until this comes into effect.

I don't know about the $5.00 because no other details have been released, and Malcolm was on the news last night saying we shouldn't believe everything we read in major publications (however, he's likely to change his mind by next week). An e-commerce expert also stated that this isn't necessarily good for Australian exports, because other countries may retaliate and charge us such a fee to send packages to them.