On 10/05/2013 12:36 PM, James Harper wrote:
Oh and if I was the government, I would put a stop to the practices of Kogan, that is, avoiding GST by selling to Australians IN Australia, but from an "overseas supplier" .... well, the sooner we get a fair market place, the better.
How are they doing this? Imports are still subject to GST, although I believe it's the responsibility of the importer. Is it as simple as taking the position that "it's up to the customer to settle the GST with the ATO for imported services, if they don't do this we can hardly be to blame"?
Anyone can buy any single item or group of items from overseas -- if the total order value is low enough, then GST is not applicable. If Kogan bought supplies of product in to AU and then distributed them, they wouldn't be able to avoid GST (unless they imported products one by one). They supply the product from their overseas counterpart directly to you, one at a time, and at a cost that means no GST is applicable. I don't believe that Kogan sells products that cost more than $1,000 -- so as long as they sell one per order, then they can get away with this. Not sure what happens if you try to order 2x 9500 S4 units on one order, but I think they would have to force you to place two separate orders OR you pay GST on the import if it is properly declared. Cheers A.