[LINK] Kogan on Online Retail....

Birch, Jim Jim.Birch at dhhs.tas.gov.au
Mon Jan 10 16:12:23 AEDT 2011


Frank O'Connor wrote:

> 1. It costs more than it raises in revenue. Doesn't make a lot of
sense to do this ... as the ATO pointed out.

Great reason for dropping it.

>2. If one passes on the costs (as Customs and the ATO would probably be
bound to do if the government caved to the retailers demands) the cost
would be far more than its worth.

Agreed.  

To reiterate: Unless a way can be found to do it effectively, ie, like
where the tax is collected at low cost, uniformly, etc, it's clearly not
worth doing.  As I said, I'd be looking at the payment mechanism -
PayPal, Visa, banks - rather than trying to chase down individual boxes
demanding payments or something else equally crazy.

I also think that international retail purchases are likely to increase
over time so it's a revenue stream that the government probably won't
ignore forever, even if it doesn't make sense currently.

I don't care about the retailers (much) and in the end this is a
marginal issue for them, unless they could somehow generate enough faux
outrage to swindle in a system that makes overseas purchases so
difficult that they don't work.  (Their dream, perhaps?)  The overseas
purchase alternative does have a bit of a KTBH effect, but it's not
because of the 10% GST, it's the other retail cost components.  If
overseas purchases were only 10% cheaper they just wouldn't happen.

I do care about taxation in general and I don't want to see Australia
head down the US anti-tax path to a neofeudal plutocratic society.  The
share of US national income going to the top 1per cent of the income
distribution has risen from 15 to 25 per cent over the past decade,
mostly because of the growth in size and profitability of the financial
sector, but significantly aided by tax cuts for the rich policies.
Taxation needs defending - it has powerful enemies and not many
friends...

- Jim


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