Thread: who are the 21 retailers?

Isnt the whole purpose of this new tax set up for imported goods just an attempt by local retailers to help pull back the gap that online suppliers have interms of price benefit over shops such as Harvey Norman and Myers?

With all the overheads that harvey norman stores have they cant compete with big online suppliers like Deals Direct so they are trying to have taxes charged upon products they import to drive up their prices to maintain profit margins therefore making them less competetive in the market. Or do I have it all wrong?

Originally Posted by Ace

Isnt the whole purpose of this new tax set up for imported goods just an attempt by local retailers to help pull back the gap that online suppliers have interms of price benefit over shops such as Harvey Norman and Myers?

With all the overheads that harvey norman stores have they cant compete with big online suppliers like Deals Direct so they are trying to have taxes charged upon products they import to drive up their prices to maintain profit margins therefore making them less competetive in the market. Or do I have it all wrong?

Thats exactly it, all that they want is the prices driven up so that it makes their own high prices more competitive - thats the only reason.

However, I believe that big companies like Harvey Norman are actually in an exceptionally good position to compete with online trading, it just means that they setup an online division like anybody else that does not have a shopfront and works out of a warehouse. I heard Gerry at the start of this whole debate saying that internet transactions are only a very small percentage of sales (I assume while is economy is as it is) and that he was looking to setup an internet based exportation side of Harvey Norman in China - to take advantage of the tax benefits. He quickly changed to wanting to apply GST to everything when he thought a little more about it.

Again, I think the sooner these imports attract GST the better.

I don’t give a rats A why good old Gerry and his mates want it.

It's totally warranted. Most of you have used our public hospitals, GST pays for them.

You happily drive on our major highways and main roads, GST pays for them.

Your children and/or grand children attend public schools, GST pays for that too and many other thing, little things, like our armed forces and so on.

But what many of you are saying is as long as you save money and do other Australians out of a job, it’s all fine by you.

This is nothing more than sheer bloody minded selfishness and unfortunately a very common Australian trait.

We will all pay for these freebies eventually.

I wonder if there is an alternative motive.
I have a laugh at their claim of job losses,
when there was no out cry when we lost manufacturing jobs OS
and also the jobs to OS call centres.
There is also a loss of income tax to the gov.

Every thing I have read on the issue point to it costing more to collect the GST than it would generate. That can only lead to less money for public hospitals and schools, not more.

Originally Posted by drivesafe

Again, I think the sooner these imports attract GST the better.

I don’t give a rats A why good old Gerry and his mates want it.

It's totally warranted. Most of you have used our public hospitals, GST pays for them.

You happily drive on our major highways and main roads, GST pays for them.

Your children and/or grand children attend public schools, GST pays for that too and many other thing, little things, like our armed forces and so on.

But what many of you are saying is as long as you save money and do other Australians out of a job, it’s all fine by you.

This is nothing more than sheer bloody minded selfishness and unfortunately a very common Australian trait.

We will all pay for these freebies eventually.

do you seriously think that online sales will reduce this country to a mess....ill be happy to buy only Australian made etc when the polies and councilers take all their fat fingers out of the pie....

what % of dollars spent by the average Australian do you think represents online sales????

I am actually happier paying taxes than not, it means Im earning money and im happy to pay taxes for all of the things you mentioned....but the governments will tax things and the return to us isnt proportionate...

tell me this do you think it fair that a person works hard and buys a house/land and over time, with good luck, that house/land becomes of decent value.....and guess what...the government sticks their fingers back in that pie....

Originally Posted by uninformed

do you seriously think that online sales will reduce this country to a mess....ill be happy to buy only Australian made etc when the polies and councilers take all their fat fingers out of the pie....

what % of dollars spent by the average Australian do you think represents online sales????

I am actually happier paying taxes than not, it means Im earning money and im happy to pay taxes for all of the things you mentioned....but the governments will tax things and the return to us isnt proportionate...

tell me this do you think it fair that a person works hard and buys a house/land and over time, with good luck, that house/land becomes of decent value.....and guess what...the government sticks their fingers back in that pie....

I can see drivesafe's POV but I see uninformed aswell. The government needs to adjust taxes to pay the hard working bloke not the big fella with all the cash. But thats a whole nother story.

Originally Posted by LSD_AUTOMOTIVE

eg. Harvey Norman pays 10% GST on a 20k order when it hits the country...$2000 paid in GST.
They then sell the goods for $44k (40k and collect $4000 GST.)

They have to give the Govt the $4000 however claim back the $2000 they were charged upon import...so pay the difference ($2k) to the ato

... and in the final shakedown, the ONLY tax the gov' finally collects is 10% of the value of the final sale in the hands of the END USER. HN paid $2k tax at the time of import ... they collect $4k at the time of sale .... they remit the difference between what they collect, and what they paid ie:$2k .... the gov' gets its 10% / $4k tax. The retailer/supply chain pays no tax on the supply of the goods ... they pay tax on their profits.

VAT is value added tax, where the tax is added EVERY time the goods change hands ... without any tax being credited back ... so it's tax on tax on tax on tax on ... the GST system certainly is fairer. If there is 4 changes of ownership in the supply chain for an item in the UK, than tax gets charged 4x at the same %, but also an ever increasing $ value.

The US $ will eventually strengthen again, and our dollar will fall, and the advantage of buying OS will diminish .... then who's going to fund the new GST offshore collections division ?

MY GOD!! ... Government employee's might loose their jobs !