Amazon to block Australian shoppers from its US website - Page 2

ilovejedd · 06-01-2018, 10:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by haertig

I believe Amazon must only charge the state taxes, not the city (or county) taxes.

Probably depends on state laws. In California, Amazon also collects county/local sales tax.

Gardenman · 06-01-2018, 10:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoHunt

The issue is that Amazon.com is a US company. The Australian government passed legislation according to which any company located outside of Australia which sells more than $75,000 per year to Australian residents is required to collect the same 10% goods and services tax (GST) that a company located in Australia is required to collect.

Amazon is refusing to do so and from July 1 will no longer allow sales on its US site to be shipped to Australia. Australian consumers will have to use Amazon's Australian site.

The burden of collecting and remitting taxes for another country is one that many companies will choose not to undertake.

How does the Australian government enforce it?

ilovejedd · 06-01-2018, 10:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gardenman

How does the Australian government enforce it?

For Amazon, hold the packages in customs?

davidfor · 06-01-2018, 10:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shalym

Is Australia one of the countries where the tax has to be included in the price shown on the product page? Or is it like the US, where the amount of tax is calculated in the cart, after the ship to location is chosen?

It is in the price displayed. The laws for pricing are pretty much that what is displayed is what the consumer pays. The receipt will show the GST for those who can claim it somehow. And the taxes are at the national, not state level, so everyone pays the same.

JoHunt · 06-01-2018, 10:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gardenman

How does the Australian government enforce it?

Good question. How they'll know sales figures for Australian customers is anyone's guess. Perhaps the Australian government will require online retailers shipping to Australia to file some sort of sales report.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

For Amazon, hold the packages in customs?

The package would be delivered. The burden is on Amazon to collect and pay the tax.

ilovejedd · 06-01-2018, 10:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoHunt

The package would be delivered. The burden is on Amazon to collect and pay the tax.

I was answering the question regarding enforcement.

Amazon is big enough that they should easily exceed the $75,000 a year figure. If Amazon doesn't want to collect and remit the tax, then the Australian government can hold packages from Amazon (US) in customs.

haertig · 06-01-2018, 12:30 PM

Companies like Amazon should just link to third party tax collecting payment sites. Similar to how some online vendors are "PayPal only". Except in this case, the "PayPal" part would be a country-managed tax collection system that works as a middleman between the customer and the vendor. The vendor wants $20 for their item, the middleman then charges the customer $25 (or whatever they want for taxes added on), forwards $20 to the vendor and keeps the rest. The vendor does not have to manage, collect and remit any taxes, they just know that to do business in a specific country they should ONLY allow payment via that county's middleman. So the county becomes responsible for collecting their own taxes, by providing their approved middleman.

The countries wanting tax money do no get to force vendors to do their tax collection dirty work for them (all the while not paying the vendors for that service), and those countries are in total control over how much they want to gouge their fellow countrymen for. And each country has complete and efficient records of transactions to use as hammers on their citizens.

This sounds kind of like North Korea and their government run internet filtering, but really, what countries like Australian are trying to do is somewhat like North Korea's citizen control. They should take ownership of it and be responsible for it if that's the type of control they want to exert. They shouldn't be able to pawn the work off on some overseas vendor and expect the vendor to take care of it for free.

pwalker8 · 06-01-2018, 02:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

EU's "link tax" proposal?

No, the privacy rules. If a EU tribunal decides that a company is guilty of violating the EU's data privacy rules, then they will fine that company up to 10% of it's world wide gross revenue. There are a lot of companies that don't want to deal with that level of risk.

kyteflyer · 06-01-2018, 02:54 PM

The whole thing is a smokescreen. There are ways around this if you really want to get something from Amazon that cant be got anywhere else. The Australian government is simply trying to throw out a distraction, so we Aussies presumably will become so irate over this, that we will fail to become irate over something we OUGHT to be irate about, and that is the huge tax breaks the BIG End of Town is getting, when taxing them at a fair rate would solve many of our government's financial woes. As always, its the little guy bearing the greater part of the tax burden.

GlenBarrington · 06-01-2018, 05:04 PM

Is Australia's population big enough to warrant it's own store? That would seem a logical resolution. If not, then maybe Australians should read less and do more to increase the population (you know, whatever seems appropriate at the time)

You don't want your neighbors calling you out for not doing your part.

shalym · 06-01-2018, 05:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

Is Australia's population big enough to warrant it's own store? That would seem a logical resolution. If not, then maybe Australians should read less and do more to increase the population (you know, whatever seems appropriate at the time)

You don't want your neighbors calling you out for not doing your part.

According to the original post, Amazon is creating a store just for Australia.

The reason I asked whether the tax needs to be included in the display price is because it *does* make it a completely different proposition from how it's handled in the US. In the US, the tax is added at the end of the transaction, based on where the items will be shipped to. The display price is the same for everyone, but the actual price paid changes.

For instance, I have this item in my cart: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013EANPI6/ The list price is $176.21. If I ship it to Connecticut, $11.19 is added to the final price for sales tax. If I decide that I want to ship it to my brother in law in Utah instead, the $11.19 tax changes to $12.07. I tried to choose a friend's address in Canada, and wasn't allowed to ship there.

How would this work for a country where the tax needs to be included in the display price? Maybe the people in those countries just aren't allowed to ship to an address outside the country? I find it interesting that I'm not allowed to ship to Canada anymore...I'm pretty sure that I've had stuff shipped directly there in the past. Maybe because they have their own store now?

edit: Never mind...I tried setting a different item to ship to my Canadian friend, and it worked. It did add "Import Fees Deposit: $12.80" to the cost, which I believe covers the taxes and fees.

Shari

Pulpmeister · 06-01-2018, 10:09 PM

So you paid the tax to Amazon, who then paid it to the Canadian government?

Canada has a GST, the same in operation and principal as Australia's. If Amazon can do it for Canada, why not Australia?

meeera · 06-01-2018, 11:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

Is Australia's population big enough to warrant it's own store? That would seem a logical resolution.

Amazon already has its own Australian shop. It has a far more limited range of goods, and they're often far more (more than the 10% GST) expensive. And you can't buy, for example, books and DVDs not 'officially' released in Australia.

DNSB · 06-02-2018, 01:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shalym

edit: Never mind...I tried setting a different item to ship to my Canadian friend, and it worked. It did add "Import Fees Deposit: $12.80" to the cost, which I believe covers the taxes and fees.

Shari

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pulpmeister

So you paid the tax to Amazon, who then paid it to the Canadian government?

Canada has a GST, the same in operation and principal as Australia's. If Amazon can do it for Canada, why not Australia?

As far as I can tell from my orders from Amazon.com, the import fee has nothing to do with the federal GST, the provincial PST or the combined flavour in some provinces called the HST and is supposedly to cover the extra cost of adding the paperwork required for importing the shipment to Canada. In theory, if the cost is less than the deposit, you will be refunded the difference.

If imposed, the GST/HST/PST along with any other applicable tariffs will be collected by the CBSA or other agency on the Canadian side of the border.

mitford13 · 06-02-2018, 01:27 AM

Whether the tax is inclusive or not on a sales page doesn’t really matter. If I go to buy a DVD on Amazon UK the price shown on the product page is VAT inclusive, and then when I go to checkout the price in my cart is less, with the VAT amount backed out, because my default mailing address is in the US. It’s complex, sure, but not that complicated and something Amazon deals with all over the world, not sure why they won’t deal with this new update.

Another example, there are lots of food items I would love to order from Amazon DE but they can’t be sent to the US because of FDA restrictions. Same with some over the counter pharmaceuticals. But somehow Amazon manages to handle regulatory compliance without banning me from the whole store...

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06-01-2018, 12:30 PM	#22
haertig Wizard Posts: 1,738 Karma: 26006874 Join Date: Sep 2017 Device: PW3, Fire HD8 Gen7, Moto G7, Sansa Clip v2, Ruizu X26	Companies like Amazon should just link to third party tax collecting payment sites. Similar to how some online vendors are "PayPal only". Except in this case, the "PayPal" part would be a country-managed tax collection system that works as a middleman between the customer and the vendor. The vendor wants $20 for their item, the middleman then charges the customer $25 (or whatever they want for taxes added on), forwards $20 to the vendor and keeps the rest. The vendor does not have to manage, collect and remit any taxes, they just know that to do business in a specific country they should ONLY allow payment via that county's middleman. So the county becomes responsible for collecting their own taxes, by providing their approved middleman. The countries wanting tax money do no get to force vendors to do their tax collection dirty work for them (all the while not paying the vendors for that service), and those countries are in total control over how much they want to gouge their fellow countrymen for. And each country has complete and efficient records of transactions to use as hammers on their citizens. This sounds kind of like North Korea and their government run internet filtering, but really, what countries like Australian are trying to do is somewhat like North Korea's citizen control. They should take ownership of it and be responsible for it if that's the type of control they want to exert. They shouldn't be able to pawn the work off on some overseas vendor and expect the vendor to take care of it for free.

06-01-2018, 02:54 PM	#24
kyteflyer Wizard Posts: 1,841 Karma: 9547754 Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Newcastle, Australia Device: iPhone SE2020	The whole thing is a smokescreen. There are ways around this if you really want to get something from Amazon that cant be got anywhere else. The Australian government is simply trying to throw out a distraction, so we Aussies presumably will become so irate over this, that we will fail to become irate over something we OUGHT to be irate about, and that is the huge tax breaks the BIG End of Town is getting, when taxing them at a fair rate would solve many of our government's financial woes. As always, its the little guy bearing the greater part of the tax burden.

06-01-2018, 05:04 PM	#25
GlenBarrington Cheese Whiz Posts: 1,986 Karma: 11677147 Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Springfield, Illinois Device: Kindle PW, Samsung Tab A 10.1(2019), Pixel 6a.	Is Australia's population big enough to warrant it's own store? That would seem a logical resolution. If not, then maybe Australians should read less and do more to increase the population (you know, whatever seems appropriate at the time) You don't want your neighbors calling you out for not doing your part.

06-01-2018, 10:09 PM	#27
Pulpmeister Wizard Posts: 2,502 Karma: 28893796 Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: Perth Western Australia Device: kindle	So you paid the tax to Amazon, who then paid it to the Canadian government? Canada has a GST, the same in operation and principal as Australia's. If Amazon can do it for Canada, why not Australia?

06-02-2018, 01:27 AM	#30
mitford13 Guru Posts: 682 Karma: 6449368 Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: Arlington, VA Device: iPad Air2, Fire HD10, Paperwhite, Kobo App	Whether the tax is inclusive or not on a sales page doesn’t really matter. If I go to buy a DVD on Amazon UK the price shown on the product page is VAT inclusive, and then when I go to checkout the price in my cart is less, with the VAT amount backed out, because my default mailing address is in the US. It’s complex, sure, but not that complicated and something Amazon deals with all over the world, not sure why they won’t deal with this new update. Another example, there are lots of food items I would love to order from Amazon DE but they can’t be sent to the US because of FDA restrictions. Same with some over the counter pharmaceuticals. But somehow Amazon manages to handle regulatory compliance without banning me from the whole store...

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