Amazon said today, May 31, that it will force the Australians to use its site for the country instead of the larger American site, starting July 1, in order to avoid a new sales tax on some imported goods.
While we regret any inconvenience this may cause customers, we have had to assess the workability of the legislation as a global business with multiple international sites. – Spokesperson, Amazon
The online retail company said that it should have redirected Australians to the new Australian site right after the 10% GST (Goods and Services Tax) was issued. The tax was applied to imported online products worth below A$1,000 or US$756 starting the 2018-19 financial year.
The Amazon Australia website started taking orders the last December. So far, it has been criticized for not just having a thin product range but also uncompetitive costs. The transition is supposed to change that now!
It may even benefit the Australian retailers who have faced a downgrade of their businesses since the rise of online shopping. Many of them campaigned to get GST applied to all products shipped from overseas.
A spokeswoman for Treasurer Scott Morrison wrote in an email: “The government doesn’t apologize for ensuring multi-nationals pay a fair amount of tax here in Australia. A number of other countries are taking a similar approach and adopting a vendor collection model to collect GST from low-value imported goods.”
According to a report from Amazon, its Australian site is offering 60 million products in 23 categories as compared to the half a billion products via its American site.
