Overseas Purchasing - GST Threshold about to be reduced

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#1356797 1-Aug-2015 20:28

lucky015: Funny thing is that for a large amount of items it will still be majorly cheaper than purchasing here in NZ.

Yeah, I just bought an item of electronics from Amazon and had it shipped the hard way (youshop) because the item was not eligible for shipping to NZ.

Total cost of the item through amazon including youshop charges. NZ$220. Pricespy for the same item: NZ$420.

Also, for a lot of the stuff that I buy, the item is simply not on sale in NZ.

Geektastic

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#1356866 1-Aug-2015 22:50

lucky015: Funny thing is that for a large amount of items it will still be majorly cheaper than purchasing here in NZ.

Ignoring the fact of course that many many things are simply not actually sold here....

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#1356867 1-Aug-2015 22:54

mattwnz: The speed out government moves on some things, I don't think it will be rushed in. It even says it has to go to a consultation stage. But I think it is a good thing, but $20 is to low to be economical I would have thought, as collecting the fees is the problem. According to another thread about GST being collected at cusoms, GST is often not collected anyway. I don't mind paying GST, but not keen on the additional duty fees that they charge, as I don't think they should still be charging those in todays market. With the weaker NZ dollar, it is going to make overseas purchases less attractive, and may fuel inflation, which may mean interest rate rises.

I agree re the fees.

Particularly I dislike the Customs and Biosecurity levy. We pay Customs to carry out all their functions via income tax.

Also if you bring in something in your business name, they will tell you that you have to use a customs broker. Why? It's the same transaction as if I bring it in my own name - why should I pay some joker to clip the ticket for $50+ in the middle and add precisely nothing by way of value?

Dreal

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#1356903 2-Aug-2015 00:24

jpoc:
mattwnz: Online shopping is more than just amazon. I have only purchased a few things from them myself. Most things come from these online chinese shops and ebay. Some things are also second hand and purhcased via a private seller, which wouldn't be charged gst if they were purhcased in NZ

How may of those online Chinese shops are on Aliexpress? If you get AliX to joint the scheme that most of the chinese online trade is covered.

I believe aliexpress is the 25th most popular website in NZ. Between amazon, ebay and aliexpress, thats most of the online shopping.

This would certainly be good for local business. If GST were added to most overseas purchases, it would encourage local economies.

I doubt it would be 20 bucks though. 50 bucks perhaps, or 100 might be more reasonable.

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mattwnz

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#1356910 2-Aug-2015 00:38

Geektastic:

Also if you bring in something in your business name, they will tell you that you have to use a customs broker. Why? It's the same transaction as if I bring it in my own name - why should I pay some joker to clip the ticket for $50+ in the middle and add precisely nothing by way of value?

Yes the whole broker thing seems very 19th century, and they slow things down from my experience. I don't know why they are needed in the 21st century. But there are quite a few industries where there are middlemen clipping the ticket along the way , that don't really added much tangible benefit..

Dreal

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#1356916 2-Aug-2015 01:17

Yeah I am not sure why they need the whole broker thing either. If you import it personally, no broker, so why is it needed?

Seems like they do a fair bit of chasing around though, filling forms. Don't ask me to understand the red tape of customs!

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Fred99

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#1356969 2-Aug-2015 09:24

Dreal: Yeah I am not sure why they need the whole broker thing either. If you import it personally, no broker, so why is it needed?

Seems like they do a fair bit of chasing around though, filling forms. Don't ask me to understand the red tape of customs!

One of the reasons may be that they want/need more complete and detailed information to monitor things like transfer pricing (to monitor for international profit-shifting for tax avoidance etc) and for accurate stats collection on import/exports. There's also a big difference in consequences if you as a individual import or export something vs a company exporting/importing. If you imported some chinese dried mushrooms which turned out to be toadstools, or exported a jar of NZ mussels with botulism to relatives overseas, then you've accidentally killed some relatives/friends which is your problem and theirs. If you imported or exported those products commercially, you've got a major international incident. Requirements for documentation, certification etc can be daunting. I don't think you have to use an external broker, but a qualified/approved person to lodge documents.

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#1356993 2-Aug-2015 10:13

Dreal:
jpoc:
mattwnz: Online shopping is more than just amazon. I have only purchased a few things from them myself. Most things come from these online chinese shops and ebay. Some things are also second hand and purhcased via a private seller, which wouldn't be charged gst if they were purhcased in NZ

How may of those online Chinese shops are on Aliexpress? If you get AliX to joint the scheme that most of the chinese online trade is covered.

I believe aliexpress is the 25th most popular website in NZ. Between amazon, ebay and aliexpress, thats most of the online shopping.

This would certainly be good for local business. If GST were added to most overseas purchases, it would encourage local economies.

I doubt it would be 20 bucks though. 50 bucks perhaps, or 100 might be more reasonable.

No it wouldn't, I would still be buying through those same companies because it is so much cheaper than buying in NZ.
Unless they raise GST on imported goods to over 100% then it will do sod all, and may even make the situation worse !

For example I bring in stuff for myself. Now what I will do is look at bringing in stuff for myself AND other people to offset some of the fixed costs.

As a guess, I would say the GST thing is another offshoot of the TPPA, the large corporations trying to protect their "Zoning" where they can have higher markups in certain areas. How soon will it be before we get told we can't import anything because it breaches some corporations copyright ?

Fred99

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#1357058 2-Aug-2015 11:46

sir1963:
Dreal:
jpoc:
mattwnz: Online shopping is more than just amazon. I have only purchased a few things from them myself. Most things come from these online chinese shops and ebay. Some things are also second hand and purhcased via a private seller, which wouldn't be charged gst if they were purhcased in NZ

How may of those online Chinese shops are on Aliexpress? If you get AliX to joint the scheme that most of the chinese online trade is covered.

I believe aliexpress is the 25th most popular website in NZ. Between amazon, ebay and aliexpress, thats most of the online shopping.

This would certainly be good for local business. If GST were added to most overseas purchases, it would encourage local economies.

I doubt it would be 20 bucks though. 50 bucks perhaps, or 100 might be more reasonable.

No it wouldn't, I would still be buying through those same companies because it is so much cheaper than buying in NZ.
Unless they raise GST on imported goods to over 100% then it will do sod all, and may even make the situation worse !

For example I bring in stuff for myself. Now what I will do is look at bringing in stuff for myself AND other people to offset some of the fixed costs.

As a guess, I would say the GST thing is another offshoot of the TPPA, the large corporations trying to protect their "Zoning" where they can have higher markups in certain areas. How soon will it be before we get told we can't import anything because it breaches some corporations copyright ?

IMO this whole GST collection issue is one symptom of, and intertwined with a fundamentally flawed global model for tax revenue collection by sovereign states. The system is broken in so many ways:

Collection of GST for global trade in direct consumer services (ie Netflix etc) isn't going to be easy, and undermines the whole GST system.
Tax avoidance by profit-shifting is practically unenforceable due to difficulty in policing (ie Google etc pay almost no tax in NZ).
Lobbying by large (multinational) corporations who benefit from the flawed system destroys political will to change.
Ease of transfer of funds internationally leads to flow of "hot money" chasing short-term speculative gains, with risk of creating creating bubbles and market volatility - that volatility acts as a positive feedback mechanism (making it worse) but simultaneously destroys incentive for long-term investment either nationally or across borders. Policing that global money-flow to prevent laundering is complex, draconian, and ineffective - so as well as an economic issue, it's a serious global security issue.
Reform is resisted anyway, because the fundamental belief that "tax is theft" is common.
Post GFC, IMF, World Bank, and economists were pushing for fundamental global change - but it fell on deaf ears.

As for the TPP, I'm deeply distrustful of US motives being primarily an attempt to form a trading bloc to counter Chinese influence in our region, and that there will be increased and massive pressure exerted on NZ to sign up to something very bad (it's not an FTA). There won't be concessions on dairy - take a drive from Montreal to Quebec city along the back roads lined with little villages and small farms (which would be obliterated if Canada opened their borders to free dairy trade) and despite valid economic argument that the inefficient production should be shut down / modernised, if Ottawa signed up to something even partly to what NZ wants, the result would probably be close to civil war - (secessionist riots at least) and that's just the pushback on one small issue overall (but a big one for NZ) from Canada.

sbiddle

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#1357068 2-Aug-2015 12:03

Dreal:

This would certainly be good for local business. If GST were added to most overseas purchases, it would encourage local economies.

How exactly?

I don't mind paying GST - it's only fair that this does happen.

Much like a Capital Gains tax that simply introduces fairness to the tax system, adding GST to all imported goods will do very little for local retailers if the cost of buying goods is still far cheaper overseas.

When I can buy lots of small components for under $5 from Aliexpress including shipping that arrive here typically within a week now I'm not going to care about GST. The simply fact is these retailers have the big advantage they can provide me with a product including shipping for less than the cost of actual cost of shipping within NZ.

sbiddle

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#1357070 2-Aug-2015 12:04

sir1963:

As a guess, I would say the GST thing is another offshoot of the TPPA, the large corporations trying to protect their "Zoning" where they can have higher markups in certain areas. How soon will it be before we get told we can't import anything because it breaches some corporations copyright ?

It's been discussed in depth that parallel importing will very likely become illegal again as a result of TPP. What most people don't actually realise is that NZ is pretty unique in having parallel import rules - it's something that's banned in across the vast majority of the world.

Dreal

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#1357094 2-Aug-2015 12:52

sbiddle:
Dreal:

This would certainly be good for local business. If GST were added to most overseas purchases, it would encourage local economies.

How exactly?

I don't mind paying GST - it's only fair that this does happen.

Much like a Capital Gains tax that simply introduces fairness to the tax system, adding GST to all imported goods will do very little for local retailers if the cost of buying goods is still far cheaper overseas.

When I can buy lots of small components for under $5 from Aliexpress including shipping that arrive here typically within a week now I'm not going to care about GST. The simply fact is these retailers have the big advantage they can provide me with a product including shipping for less than the cost of actual cost of shipping within NZ.

Well buying power, and income taxes and so on are still factors in pricing. But it's very hard to compete with international prices if they don't pay GST. If they pay GST it isn't.

I can't speak for everyone, but I personally manage to get very close/sometimes the same to most aliexpress prices selling locally given any decent form of shipping. If people had to pay GST for those imports, I'd be able to beat them in some cases probably.

Some businesses have higher overheads (like shop lease), and some just rip people off. We can count those places out :P But in generally adding GST to all imports, it's going to level the field more.

Admittedly we can't match low labour costs etc, and some goods are going to be cheaper because of buying volumes. Small cheap electronic goods are an example.

And what you say is absolutely true about the price for those small goods, although you have to wait 2-8 weeks, and the products are occasionally shoddy, and if they are, there is not much in the way of protection or custom services (sometimes those chinese dealers don't even respond to e-mails). If you have more dosh to spend, you might not bother, even for something small like a cable.

I use aliexpress often. But I am very wary, and I don't buy everything from there. There are competitively priced local goods too. For extra cheap stuff, actually I agree - if its an adapter, or cable or similar and it can be had for under 5 bucks and I have no issue waiting for it. I have some clothes from aliexpress too (just as I have some from hallensteins and other places).

No one is going to buy everything online, even online focused people. On bigger goods, those with competitive margins locally are put in a better position by universal GST to compete with overseas prices. Buying volume and overheads withstanding, but it actually helps a great deal if you have low margins, to compete, in my personal experience.

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Geektastic

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#1357120 2-Aug-2015 13:43

mattwnz:
Geektastic:

Also if you bring in something in your business name, they will tell you that you have to use a customs broker. Why? It's the same transaction as if I bring it in my own name - why should I pay some joker to clip the ticket for $50+ in the middle and add precisely nothing by way of value?

Yes the whole broker thing seems very 19th century, and they slow things down from my experience. I don't know why they are needed in the 21st century. But there are quite a few industries where there are middlemen clipping the ticket along the way , that don't really added much tangible benefit..

We are very fond of the 'distributor model' here, which has rather outgrown it's usefulness. It's another massive exercise in ticket clipping that adds a huge markup to almost everything in NZ that is imported.

For example, cameras. What value does it add having a Nikon distributor (or Canon, Leica etc)? What do they do?

1) Dealer rings them and orders 10 cameras.
2) They ring Nikon and request the 10 cameras.
3) The 10 cameras arrive. They take delivery, readdress the box and send it to the dealer
4) The end

And for this they expect to be paid?

A more 21st century version:

1) Dealer wants 10 cameras
2) Dealer logs on to Nikon's secure portal and orders the 10 cameras
3) Dealer takes delivery of the 10 cameras.
4) The end.

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#1357124 2-Aug-2015 13:50

Dreal:
I believe aliexpress is the 25th most popular website in NZ. Between amazon, ebay and aliexpress, thats most of the online shopping.

So the Govt is going to get shonky traders living in China to collect its GST for it? Good luck with that!

Will Judith Collins be going out to dinner with them all as well?

mattwnz

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#1357130 2-Aug-2015 13:59

sbiddle:

sir1963:

As a guess, I would say the GST thing is another offshoot of the TPPA, the large corporations trying to protect their "Zoning" where they can have higher markups in certain areas. How soon will it be before we get told we can't import anything because it breaches some corporations copyright ?

It's been discussed in depth that parallel importing will very likely become illegal again as a result of TPP. What most people don't actually realise is that NZ is pretty unique in having parallel import rules - it's something that's banned in across the vast majority of the world.

Luckily the TPP agreement has failed at the moment. I fail to see much advantage to NZ in signing up. Not only will likely stop parallel importing, which will raise local pricing due to lack of competition with the lower pricing. But it will also mean NZ taxpayers will be paying more for drugs, and could mean some drugs may not be funded due to cost, as the drug buying agency won't be able to buy cheaper generic drugs. It is lose lose IMO for your average kiwi.

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