Possible lowering of GST threshold on parcels

[liegeprime]

Oh man! I do 95% of my shopping from overseas online stores! I call shenaniigans on that!

++++++++1 to that!!! total B^@%$&%$#!!!!

[UltraMarginal]

The idea of the tax, apart from more money for the government is to make purchasing locally more attractive than purchasing internationally, which in turn improves local economy.

the down side is like many of us here, most of the stuff I buy overseas because I can't get it here. or it's such a niche market that I import myself because it's much cheaper than buying through a local importer (baseball gear).
Neither of these things is going to change with a 5 - 10 % increase.

[Burn]

Any parcels entering Australia will now have to have the value declared on the packing slip, at which point they'll charge you 10% of the value and invoice you accordingly.

Relying on you to declare it via your tax return or other methods simply will not work as people just won't declare.

What our politicians need to do is rather than looking at raising revenue, they should also be looking at ways to cut excess costs. *cough*travelexpenses*cough*lifetimepensions*cough *

[TAAUBlaster]

Didn't they do their own "report" on this a while ago that showed it would end up costing more to collect, than the amount they collected from the tax?

I can just see them slapping a "collection fee" on top of the tax too. If retailers here weren't so greedy, a lot more people would likely be buying locally. And like others have said, there is a lot of stuff that just isn't available here.

Not to mention how much the tax will add to US Ebay purchases

[SMHFConvoy]

Lovely, just lovely.

[Hursticon]

Didn't they do their own "report" on this a while ago that showed it would end up costing more to collect, than the amount they collected from the tax?

I can just see them slapping a "collection fee" on top of the tax too. If retailers here weren't so greedy, a lot more people would likely be buying locally. And like others have said, there is a lot of stuff that just isn't available here.

Not to mention how much the tax will add to US Ebay purchases

QFT!

Not forgetting that we already pay an "Australia Tax" on anything made outside of and bought within Australia (Which is everything at this point), but with the $AU actively being pushed further & further down in value...

I have stop there otherwise I'm going to get into a political rant and violate the board's rules.

Suffice it to say, a majority apparently voted for this.

[DarkHyren]

This is incredibly unfair! I really don't see how we can be called "the lucky country" anymore when everything is double the price of other countries and we're going to be charged even more.
Might be worthwhile using a shipping forwarder for everything from now on and setting the value at $19.95

[5FDP]

This is a cash grab pure and simple People were drawn to online purchasing because of cheaper prices (and better customer service) and the government want a slice of that pie. Just wait until they figure out how to tax the oxygen we breathe.

[griffin]

I have stop there otherwise I'm going to get into a political rant and violate the board's rules.

You can talk about politics, because it affects us all and impacts on our daily lives... as long as it is rational (identify the problem you have and give reasonable alternatives that the politicians are ignoring for self-serving reasons)... and if we don't talk about it, we the "common people" won't fully understand the process and specifics enough to improve things or get enough people support it (without ending up with a mob mentality of misguided opinions).
The rules just recommend not talking about political parties, or any other organisation that people grow up with or long-term loyalty to, as it can lead to dismissing or excusing poor decisions that are proven issues against that organisation... and can prompt others to target those people of a particular organisation for fun or sport.
Keeping it rational has a better chance of drawing in people from those organisations than making fun of them.

[Defcon]

This is pretty sad news, but with the declining dollar it has become much less attractive to purchase overseas orders anyway. Not saying lowering the threshold to $20 is right. I have been doing most of my shopping at retail, because it really works out cheaper or about the same for the stuff I want anyway. If and when a lower threshold comes into affect, I would actually be more worried about local retail prices going up, thus negating the point of the lower threshold to make an even playing field. The result is higher prices for everyone, for the sake of increasing government revenue
Small businesses will be paying tax on importing even if they have small parcels, when they sell the item add gst as well, prices will go up and still be uncompetitive. This lowering of the threshold will net all the ones avoiding tax, to bad for individuals who just want to be hobby sellers.
Since Im not a small business Im just having an opinion, but dont see the benefits if there are any