What's your percentage of income spent overseas on retail?

My Wife came home the other day and said my 13 year old son doesn't have to wear plates any more($2200AUD),I said thats great.She said the Dentist now wants him to get braces at ($6400AUD) and on and on she went about the procedure..i asked my wife wether she had inadvertently smacked her head on the pavement!!.You have got to be jokingSIX GRAND for 10 bucks of wire..What the hell???
The options i gave my son and wife were

#1- Dad could get his pliers out and make a set of Braces out of some stainless steel wire i have in the tool shed
#2-My son could become an exchange student in Thailand for 2 years where Braces cost ($1200AUD) and living expenses $1000 per year=total ($3200)
#3-My son and wife could both get part time jobs to make up the amount
#4-My son needs to accept that his near perfect teeth will always be near perfect and never hollywood! and that if a girl rejects him because of this slight imperfection than she was shallow to begin with and high maintenance.
...Outcome Pending

REDBACK----OUT

 

You're a bit off: the Productivity Commission is telling the Labour government that lowering the GST threshold on imports is a dumb idea and a better solution is reduce trading restrictions on retailers.

Retailers need to shut up about the GST import thing and the government needs to stop screwing retailers over with bureaucratic nonsense.

 

I think you already know the outcome.

 

You are right...

 

The GST-on-imports issue is a total red herring.

So you buy a $15 book from Amazon. Fair enough, you save $1.50 in GST, but then you pay (say) $4.50 postage and it's still cheaper than a bookshop.

I can't understand why someone in the MSM doesn't make this point to one of the retailers during one of their many pissing, whinging interviews, and blow their argument out of the water.

 

The sub $1000.00 GST free threshold works for retailers as well for buying stock of cheaper priced items from wholesalers overseas, it can be a real advantage for retailers in this regard. You just have to be smart and make lemonade instead of being a victim to it.

 

Its funny how you only ever see that mentioned in the comments at the bottom of mainstream news sites.

I always read those stories hoping the "reporter" follows on from Gerry Harvey's latest moaning with "However, simple mathematics show the retailers' arguments are full of..."

...and I'm always disappointed.

 

If a gst/tax is brought in on goods less than $1000, it won't make one iota of difference to local retailers pockets.

Example. a brandname Geopick costs $135 AUD here in Australia. The exact same pick costs $36 USD in the US. Post is $15 USD. Cost landed in Australia is $51 USD. Even if the government decided to tax me a whopping 50% inport duty on this, the cost would be $75. Still way cheaper than one bought here in Australia. End result is $25 in the Government coffer, me with the same geopick but more expensive, and the WHINGING RIPOFF AUSSIE RETAILER NO BETTER OFF. I wonder how much profit on $130 AUD the Aussie retailer importing these picks is making anyway?

It's my hard earned money and I'd like to spend it how and where benefits me. The likes of H##rvey N#rm#an typifies the hypocracy of screaming poor but hiding his/her real profits on the quiet. No sympathy from me there.

 

I stopped stacking estwing geopicks a couple of years ago. It's the paleopick you want. I think four is enough for me.

 

Well said - even if GST is added, many products are cheaper to buy from os including shipping costs, whatever costs AND GST - browsing is so much more fun than going to a retail store and finding the item you have decided on is not in stock and will take 8 weeks to arrive.

Aussie Retailers - Get with the program - stop ripping us off.

 

Is Gerry Harvey not a billionaire ? I feel sorry for him. And there is no money in retail.

 

You are not being ripped off. You are living in a country that has the second high wages and living standards in the world because Australian businesses pay Australian staff a LOT to have them work in this country. Businesses can only pay these kinds of wages and entitlements and rents because prices reflect the costs of business here.

If you want live in a place where consumer items are super cheap you will have to also live in a country with low wages and low worker entitlements and low rents.

How cheap do you think Chinese goods would be if they raised the minimum wage there to match Australia, along with Super, Workers Comp and rents? Australians are so greedy, they want all of the entitlements and none of the costs of those entitlements. If you think that a country can last with cheap imported everything and still sustain an Auatralian standard of living then you are blind. America has fallen because of exactly what you seem to regard as your natural right.

 

sorry Jonesy. Couldn't disagree with you more. No one has indicated that our freedom to purchase from wherever we can at the cheapest price is "a natural right". What isn't right though, is the potential for government coersion to force us to buy a product from local retailers more expensively. AND even if local retailers don't stock an item and we have to buy it from overseas, we will still be stuck with the tax!!!!

 

All I am saying is that there are consequences. If retail dies in Australia, the Australian lifestyle will follow soon after. For everyone. No-one is coercing you to buy from Australian retailers. If the 24 percent of Australian workers that the retail industry directly support no longer have jobs or sufficient work hours, our economy will fail. Cheap goods or an economy with high wages and employment. Choose one, because you can't have both.

 

And what is the "Australian Lifestyle" you refer to?

A military that does the bidding of the USA?

An economy being lectured at by the IMF because of our hesitation to raise Reserve bank interest rates?

An Australia being criticised by the UN because our choice to proceed with LNG might impact negatively upon the WORLD possession called the Great Barrier Reef.

Australian sovereignty was sold out long ago to foreign interests. The $1000 tax limit is a piddling issue in the big scheme of things. But it might be a huge thing in the minds of consumers due to it hitting them in the hip pocket.

 

No, nothing so dramatic. The Australian Lifestyle that I am referring to is the Awards system, i.e.: Minimum national wages, 4 weeks paid holiday leave, sick leave, workers comp and all of the other entitlements that we are used to. Employers don't pay all of that from thin air. No customers for Australia's largest employer = no jobs = recession = depression. You are not being ripped off by retailers. You want everything cheap, but someone to pay you lots of money for producing nothing.

If you have been reading the thread you will see that I am not concerned about the $1000 GST exemption, I am just bemused that you think that retailers are ripping you off.

 

I could list over a dozen large retail chains that have gone to the wall in the last year in Australia. Clearly they are wallowing in money.

 

The government coerces you to pay GST on virtually everything that you buy in Australia, including parking meters, every cup of coffee, all your clothing, everything. Yet you say that "it isn't right" for you to have to pay GST on things you buy off the net? Why aren't you getting all bent out of shape over the injustice of having to pay GST on your Corn Flakes this morning? It's not a "potential" it is law.

Again, I agree that the $1000 GST exemption is not a very significant issue for retailers. I am bemused at your logic though, the Gov hits you for GST a dozen times a day every day already, why aren't you fighting that?

 

I am, by purchasing online

 

@ Kram. LOL Excellent response which precisely hits the nail on the head.

@ Jonesy. Yes the Government does coerce us to pay GST on virtually everything. I most definitely WAS bent out of shape on the injustice of it. And I do realise that what did not exist as law 10 years ago is now "law" today. But mate, you should stop with the "bemuse" bit. You come across as a bit of a smark alecky know-it-all with that line........unless thats your intent.......

Once something is "LAW" its very hard to undo for example the current gun ownership laws and past forced gun buy back. Some things you can't win by fighting (fighting nicely that is). Same with the GST. The time to fight is BEFORE it becomes law and the best way of fighting (nicest way) is in the court of public opinion. Hence my disagreement with you and my expressing it.

Are you still bemused?