[LINK] Kogan on Online Retail....

[Michael Skeggs mike@bystander.net]

On 10 January 2011 16:12, Birch, Jim <Jim.Birch at dhhs.tas.gov.au> wrote:

>
> 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.
>
>
In about 2002 my wife bought me a digital camera (3 megapixel!) online from
the USA.
It's value with shipping was approximately the $500 that was the cut-off for
duty and GST at that time, and she got a letter saying the parcel was being
held in some bonded warehouse in Botany until the taxes and processing fees
were paid. This required a trip to make the payment and collect the camera,
and with the fees the total payment was circa $100.
Even with all the hassle the price was still $200 less than Gerry Harvey was
offering.
A similar story in the late 1990s when I bought a Palm PDA (with 1Mb of
storage!) that arrived via Fedex.
It included an invoice for $26 duty and a $50 processing charge. I ignored
it and there was no follow up.

Collecting taxes on individual items is nothing more than pointless busy
work, throwing sand in the gears of the economy. I would support a GST rake
off via VISA or Paypal, if only to shut up Messrs Lew and Harvey.

Regards,
Michael Skeggs