Ebay Netflix Tax Now Impossed On All Australian Ebay Sellers

Go read the summary thread on the Australian forum. From what I can glean, the GST on PHYSICAL goods has been deferred until July 1, 2018, but the GST on services and DIGITAL goods still goes into effect on July 1, 2017, so if any of your ebay sales result from services or digital goods, ebay has to collect GST on that portion of the fees to remit to the Australian government.

Even though individual sellers are likely exempt due to the annual threshold, since sales route through centralized ebay, Amazon, Alibaba, etc. marketplace platforms, the aggregate sales through the platform are sufficient to make GST due on all sellers' fees. All Amazon and ebay are doing are passing through the obligation to the seller, and collecting and remitting the GST.

That's my interpretation, at any rate.

ebay themselves are now telling me fees are on imported goods the trouble is I am exporting goods, so are they going to double dip and charge 10% on digital goods i.e anything we sell and then another 10% in July 2018 on PHYSICAL goods? Surely not? Can anyone advise me if I was to close my Australian ebay account and just have an ebay uk account would this exempt me? I am a small seller under the threshold I don't need to pay GST currently so have not applied for GST but now have to pay GST to ebay? Makes no sense and why bother selling in Oz if your going to pay 10% on digital goods and then in a years time another 10% on physical goods? Make no mistake Oz ebay sellers will be billed an additional 10% on their mothly fees as of next month so your loosing a lot of money. Can they squeeze ebay sellers even further?

@Duncanvr... I think all your questions are pretty thoroughly answered at ebay seller centre - http://sellercentre.ebay.com.au/con...es-ebaycomau





Notice the bolded part ("This includes ebay service").... So if you use ebay, the 10% fee will be there (as it is your 'use of ebay service' that Australian officials are taxing, not your business).

-k-

Looks like no way around this tax online business is going to go down hill in Oz

I can see why Australian folks would be upset with this change in their tax laws. Hopefully no one believes that ebay should spread them across customers in every county.

If you live in Australia it may be possible to establish a 'presence' in another county and then find some way to transfer money back. But I would assume that the Australian government is bright enough to understand that this might be done and have regulations in place to insure they get their cut.

Sounds like the Australian folks need to start writing letters to their elected officials.
Don

Wait for July 2018 when another 10% added on physical goods that will be the death of it for many sellers here. I just left ebay USA as I was paying $1.86 a BIN listing and fees of 40%+. Paypal decided to take 4.4% every transaction. ebay usa wants tracking on every item, don't make sense for cheap $3 stamp sales. They are adding late shipment defecting items on seller accounts for stuff sent airmail? I lost my TRS in ebay usa region after years of having it. Because I refuse to spend $17+ per tracking number from here so I no longer qualify for their TRS discount despite having a 100% track record. Can't get tracking cheaper than that and its the time of having to upload a scan of every post office receipt, not worth the effort. Went on to ebay UK loved it 1500 free listings $500 less a month in fees now this tax comes in and ruins that they get the money from sellers any way they can weather Goft or ebay. I am really on a low note here. I may try for a few more months and throw in the towel? I can't see how it may be possible to establish a 'presence' in another county and then find some way to transfer money back. I don't see how one could make that work. Really sad days ahead for sellers if your not registered for GST and not exempt on this tax your loosing your profit with this unwanted tax. I will be voting a different Goft next election. Good night folks thanks for all comments

No. Not strictly. You can still a) use Australian based solutions such as AllBids, or b) create your own website and sell through it.

Part of me understands very well why the officials have pushed down this route. It favors the local business, as well as brings money back to where it is consumed in the first place.

A similar legislation is coming into force here in Europe as well , and 'after 2021, all goods bought online by EU consumers from sellers outside the EU will also be subject to VAT, in line with current EU sales practices.' (notice the wording 'all goods' - there will be no exemptions but even the smallest of purchased will be subject to VAT unlike currently).

-k-

Own website will it generate any income? Sadly ebay has all the buyers for stamps. Anyone had any sucess with a myshopify website?

I'm sure that part of the problem is also the ceaseless tax-dodging of companies like ebay and Amazon, with very low tax-takes by governments despite large national sales. Next the robot tax!

Time for an election, the wages in this country cut, the tax on companies like ebay passed on directly to local sellers using the site, cost of living through the roof, electricity is next said to rise another 20% and it just goes on, sackings of hundreds of workers at a time in various companies. Property going skyrocketing. Its getting very hard for your average Aussie battler

GeoffHa,
I am not sure how much might be considered 'dodging' but how much they pay is publically reported (they are a public company). In 2016 they paid over 1 Billion in taxes including $744 million in US taxes and 200 million in foreign taxes.

Here is their 2016 income statement http://www.marketwatch.com/investin...y/financials

Frankly ebay is not really considered a significant player in the future of online commerce. The 'Big Three' are Amazon, Google, and YouTube; these are the companies that folks ought to be worried about in terms of impacting online commerce. Amazon will crush local stores, Google has control of all the marketing, and YouTube is evolving to become the primary multimedia provider.
Don

There's always Delcampe as an alternative selling site. I'm a small seller and still have luck on that site. The fees are much less in comparison.

It's not that black/white. If you don't promote a website, then nobody will ever come there, and your sales will be big flat zero. So in order to make some money, you have to also spend it (or put plenty of effort/time to it)

IMHO the ebay pricing (even after this GST thingie) is very affordable. If you try to gain something such as 500 eyeballs otherwise, it will easily cost you MUCH more.




I guess use of Shopify falls down to question whether or not Australian officials treat Shopify as 'service' similar to ebay. Personally I would classify as service, and thus subject for this tax.

In order to avoid the GST, you would need something that is not a service, such as WordPress with WooCommerce plugin hosted on some Australian webhost. Getting started is cheap, but like I wrote before, if you want audience/visitors, then the costs start to pile up. And doing it all by yourself is serious work (the reasons services such as ebay and Shopify are so successfull is that both make buying and selling stuff easy. You don't have to worry about things such as whether or not there will be buyers/sellers, how the transactions work, who will take care of the complaints etc).

-k-

That's exactly as I see it, thus far.

duncanvr

You are confusing the tax on fees and the tax on sales. The tax on sales has been deferred till 2018 but the tax on ebay FVF's and store fees will go into effect July 1 of this year same as for Canada.

We will be paying GST/HST on FVF's as well as store fees and you will be paying your tax on the fees as well because ebay has changed their billing so they can now charge the tax as it is a service that is taxable like any other service.

This has nothing to do with sales and import taxes which is another mess altogether hence it was postponed until next year for Australia.

This will not have a huge affect on sellers unless they sell huge dollar amounts. All services are technically taxable but ebay has gotten away with not collecting as they were billing through Switzerland I believe.

If you want to know how much you will pay, look at your last invoice and take your store fee and FVF's and multiply it by your tax rate to see how much extra it will cost you.

Here in Alberta, Canada, on a $20.00 store fee and $100 in FVF's would cost me an additional $6.00 per month. Other provinces will be different. If you tax is at 10%, it would cost an additional $12.00 per month based on the same fees.

Right now you pay that 10% on purchases in Australia and any services you pay for so ebay is just following suit because the services were generated in Australia and are taxable.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the foreign sales and import tax situation.

Hope this clarifies what ebay is taxing as of July 1, 2017.

You will have to talk to your accountant to see if you can offset any of that against tax collected from sales to Australia. Here we can offset it against any GST/HST tax paid by the business.

We have to be registered and I imagine you do as well to be able to offset. If you are registered and most of your sales are outside of Australia, you may get a refund.