When Netflix Australia began they refused to collect GST saying they were not an Australian entity. Their pricing was 10% below the other streamers. Does anyone know if this is still the case?
On Wed, Feb 22, 2017 at 1:07 AM, Stephen Loosley <[email protected] > wrote: > If governments are serious about transforming the public sector, > parliaments are going to have to stop throwing dead cats, like Scott > Morrison’s new overseas GST bill, over the wall. They create a spaghetti of > bespoke business rules that need more bureaucrats, not less, to maintain. > > By Tom Burton .. http://www.themandarin.com.au/ > 75536-tom-burton-no-dead-cats-please > > > > Yet another dead cat is about to be thrown over the wall. > > One of the most frustrating parts of being a public servant is when a > minister and the parliament decide to handball a tricky political problem > to the bureaucracy to fix. The fix inevitably needs a complicated > regulatory patchover and painful execution and resourcing issues to sort > out. > > The poster child example in recent times was when then-communications > minister Stephen Conroy decided Australia needed to filter the internet to > protect us against baddies and pornographers. Whatever the virtue of the > idea, the complexity of systems and compliance processes that would have > been needed to come up with anything near effective was nightmarish. > > In regulator land this is known as the dead cat option, and this week we > have a live example with Treasurer Scott Morrison introducing a bill to > remove the GST concession for low value goods bought offshore. > > The big local retailers led by Gerry Harvey have been pushing for years to > close down the concession, claiming they want a level playing field with > overseas retailers. > > A concession has existed for decades for goods worth less than $1000, as > an administrative device to save Customs (now Border Force) the cost of > having to collect duty and GST on low value transactions. These > transactions were typically one off purchases by returning travellers — > cameras, portable electronic devices and perfumes. > > With the cost of collection for goods under $1000 typically more than the > revenue to be gained the concession was a neat (and popular) fix. > > Along comes the internet and with it the huge rise in offshore online > purchases — much of it driven by the inexplicable, significantly higher > cost of buying exactly the same goods locally. > > For many years the Canberra econocrats resisted changing the concession, > arguing it was helping competition in Australia’s notoriously oligopolistic > retail sector. > > It was also noted that no major economy seeks to collect revenue on small > value transactions, because of the complexity of collecting and enforcing > value-add taxes in external markets. > > The cost of collection has slowly been coming down and is now estimated at > around $60 a transaction. This means that, given a GST of 10%, the > government will actually lose money on transactions of less than $600. The > average value of internet purchases is estimated to be around $100, but the > mode, or most frequent purchase, is around $10. For millennials, buying > overseas online is second nature. In my own house a tiny parcel, usually > containing an obscure piece of micro computing, arrives every other day. > > It was this math that recently prompted the US to actually lift the de > minimis level from $200 to $800. > > But in Australia, Harvey and the big retailers finally convinced > then-treasurer Joe Hockey and the states to go the other way. > > The measure was announced in last year’s May election budget and yesterday > the ever-assertive Treasurer Scott Morrison proudly introduced the bill. It > requires all offshore retailers and/or their re-deliverers who sell > anything to an Australian to register for GST and to remit it to the ATO. > > The measure will raise $130 million a year once underway. Morrison claimed > it as a world first. He’s right, no country, even with the encouragement of > the OECD, has tried to levy a GST on foreign retailers of goods by > registering those businesses in their tax system. > > For a government that wants to reduce bureaucracy, the bill is a red tape > nightmare, with 31 pages of impenetrable amendments. If the devil is in the > detail it will defy any intelligent parliamentary scrutiny. Bring back John > Faulkner, a senator who got across the detail at forensic level. > > The bill seeks to target the big e-commerce platforms — Amazon, eBay and > the looming monster of them all, the Chinese Alibaba. How willing they will > be to reprogram their business systems and accounting processes to collect > sales tax for the Australian government is to be seen. > > In the case of eBay it will be particularly problematic. eBay is an on > line bazaar, linking buyers and sellers, but is not a payment platform. > Each retailer collects direct from the buyer, which means a Lahore-based > online shop selling phone charging cords for $8 will need to register with > the Australian Tax Office and send through the 80 cents when ever they sell > to an Aussie. Good luck with that one. > > If they sell through eBay it will be eBay’s responsibility to identify who > the end consumer is in Australia, calculate the tax payable, remit the tax > to the ATO and presumably collect that amount from the online shop. I doubt > eBay wants to be a tax collector for 100 governments so I think some lucky > lobbyist is about to get real busy. > > If the retailer sells less than $75,000 a year to Australians they will be > exempt from the GST, as are Australian retailers, but not if the sale > occurs through the e-commerce platform. How all of that is to be tracked > and enforced is anyone’s guess. > > And good luck to the comptroller of customs, whose agency will be vetting > these goods as they stream into the country. > > A true dead cat. > > The world will be watching Australia’s move. Don’t be surprised if they > are saying if Australia can collect sales tax off their retailers, we will > too. > > This means the many Australian online retailers targeting offshore markets > could quickly find themselves also being required to register and pay sales > tax to a myriad of jurisdictions. Good times for the local accountants. > > Many of the complexities and high costs of public administration come from > having to string together schemes like this. Over time even more complexity > and cost are typically laid into the system, supported by a web of IT and > other bureaucratic processes. > > As a result, much of government is riddled with back office complexity. > This is the elephant in the room as government seeks to transform its > services into fast, easy to use and intelligent services. Efficiently. > > The cost of maintaining this spaghetti of bespoke business rules is huge. > Witness the one billion dollar price tag to modernise the welfare payment > platform. > > If governments are serious about transforming the public sector to be > relevant in the digital era, then parliaments are going to have to stop > throwing dead cats, like Morrison’s overseas GST bill, over the wall. > > > _______________________________________________ > Link mailing list > [email protected] > http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link > _______________________________________________ Link mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
