The structure of the Australian taxation system provide opportunities for the wealthy to minimize the amount of tax that they pay on income.

For the vast majority of Australian taxpayers, such schemes are out of reach.

Banks provide concessions to wealthy depositors.

To call for GST to be added to products bought online by ordinary Australian taxpayers seems to be extremely hypocritical considering that the wealthy are able to take advantage of taxation concessions that are not available to the ordinary wage and salary earner.

A level playing field would also mean that the average wage and salary earner, has the same taxation advantages that the wealthy now enjoy.

Snap James H. I started a similar thread.

I agree with the intent in your points about taxation benefits for business compared to consumers and PAYEs however issues as regards pricing and taxation are separate to issues of a level playing field for business in Australia.

We should be asking why do clothes cost more here than in the US given most of it is made in China. Why do companies (like some computer companies) charge more for online sales of a laptop to Australian consumers but if you bought the same product as a US citizen it would be cheaper?

Why can you pick up a music CD more cheaply in the US but in Australia you pay through the nose? They are valid questions but separate to issues of a level playing field.

I am against GST altogether but we are stuck with it unless some future government grows some backbone and removes it.

Overseas sellers aren't obliged to collect tax for our government and setting up some sort of customs border tax thingo would cost more than they'd gain. They'll probably go ahead with that to appease Harvey. Maybe he could contribute some of his 1.5 Billion towards it. OR, the hypocrite could use Australian businesses and workers for his stock.

In the end, even if they do impose some sort of GST, products will still be cheaper from overseas as you usually get products for up to 80% cheaper than onshore. Seems to me they need to reassess their outdated business models.

Pelican, is Australia, there are monolopies, duopolies.

Our market is smaller than California, being isolated with air or sea access, it makes it very easy to corner the market.

The Competition either gets taken over, or put out of business, look at example how we were conned on the banks. Competition went out the window as soon as they swallowed the smaller fry.

we are being sold huge porkies on the sale of energy suppliers and distributors and we again are paying more for power than the Americans.

No wonder we are badly governed when governments have to respond to such bone headed thinking.

One of the prime reasons for introducing a GST was to get at least some tax from the wealthy.

As James says, the wealthy can minimise their tax on income.

They could also, in very many cases get around the sales tax, that preceded the GST.

The GST is much harder to avoid, & would have been more so, if the Democrats had not wanted to grandstand. Even so all was not lost.

So, thanks to John Howard's guts, we now do get some tax out of the wealthy. No matter how much tax they may avoid paying on their earnings, with the GST in place, for the first time, they could not avoid paying a bit, every time they spend some of that wealth.

So stop bitching, & give praise to honest John. Now when someone earns a million a year, they are going to spend most of it, which means around $100,000 in GST we did not get out of them before.

Hardly Normal is a real whinger.

His shops are terrible, his web pages non existent.

The wages he pays, and the conditions of retail workers are a disgrace.

What will he say when the FTA with China starts up?

And whatever taxes Canberra gathers on imports evaporates altogether?

I was looking at buying a camera the other day, $750 approx from Hardly Normal and just about everyone else in Australia, but $420 from the web.

Hardly a 10% GST difference there is there?

My bike tyres cost $60 here, but only $20 post free from the UK, and they are made in Indonesia. Why would I buy them from here, when people like Hardly Normal insist on 'free trade'?

AS for Myer and Target joining in with Normal's whinge!

If they ran decent shops, with a few staff, with some products that were not cheap tat at high prices, maybe I'd consider shopping there, but, frankly, Myers is a last resort shop for our family.

Target? Well, were to start? Shocking place, bad design, poor stock, and absolutely no staff on the floor.

Might as well use the Internet as buy from a warehouse with no staff on duty, eh?

There are two main issues why this is a bad idea.

Firstly the most important is that GST is considered an efficient tax primarily because as the onus is on the seller to collect the tax, the cost of collection to the state is small.

Overseas sellers have no obligation to collect tax for Australia, and the only way it can be collected is by stopping every parcel at customs, and requiring the purchaser to collect the parcel and pay.

This is estimated to cost 2 to 3 times the tax collected, so this becomes a trade barrier and not a tax.

Secondly, as a substantial portion of goods are sold via the internet GST free to the rest of the world, a reciprocal GST of 20% to the UK compared to 0% from the US will kill Australian exports.

Harvey Norman and the other retailers know this, and know that there is not a snowball's chance in hell of the policy changing. I can only assume that this is a pretext for a compensation claim or relaxation of GST on locally sold items.

Hasbeen
The GST was a good way to get tax from the wealthy except for the fact that if it was not for The Democrats the tax would be applid on all food including fruit and vegetables and other essential items. If Howard was only interested in extracting taxes from the wealthy he would have applied the GST to luxury items like boats, gold bathroom taps, marble tiles, wine etc. There are better ways to tax the wealthy by reducing tax loopholes. Please don't fall for that line spun out to appease the masses.

'Honest' John was only about increasing taxes overall to cover the cost of his increasinlgly costly middle class welfare policies and continual bailing out of industry.

I am against a GST on principle as I don't think it is the role of business or individuals to collect tax on behalf of governments. The cost to business is more than just an annoyance.

My wish is that governments and citizens have a discussion about government spending priorities. I would rather there be a cut back on real waste (not meaningless efficiency dividends) rather than keep on finding new ways to tax consumers. We need to rethink corporate taxes and taxes on massive profits and not baulk at the whining from the big end of town on issues like the mining tax.

The GST was the tax to end all other taxes but it mainly replaced wholesale tax. We see no end of new taxes whether it be levies on insurance policies, bank duties, stamp duties etc.

I am no apologist for Gerry Harvey, but an article in the Weekend Australian pointed out that most of his stores are franchised and that "the bulk of his operations, operate on 6.1% before interest and tax" Other stores seem to work on similar margins. It is also pointed out that a risk free term deposit can pay more than that.

The article mentions that it is the landlords who get up to 25% of revenue while in the USA the average appears to be about 10%

In the USA the average minimum wage is quoted as $8 an hour. Coupled with stores twice the size in the US and economies of scale when compared to Australia, creates a greater barrier to lower prices here.

The column quotes a number of statistics, but I should imagine it is not quite so easy to offer lower prices as some readers might imagine.
There is a lot of competition in these areas.

I am under the impression that Gerry Harvey owns a number of his stores and obviously charges rent, but imagine this is not the case with shopping malls. I should be interested in comments from other posters, but sometimes things are not quite so "black and white" as they appear initially.

I had to smile to myself after writing the previous, what I thought was a balanced comment, I read another Gerry criticism on "The Age" site
here

http://www.theage.com.au/business/fair-go-harvey-the-irony-in-gerry-harveys-web-plea-20110109-19jsy.html

There are always two sides of an argument !

Snake, are you suggesting that St. Normal is running his retail empire just to provide cheap tat to consumers, "It is also pointed out that a risk free term deposit can pay more than that".

Well, let him deposit his money with one of the sharks, and leave the retail area that he has no idea how to compete in to others, be they here or on the web.

Years ago, in the UK, there was a mob called 'Comet', now perhaps having morphed into 'Argus'.

At Comet could be bought every electrical piece of equipment any consumer could dream about.

It was a warehouse, and you read the Comet catalogue, went to the warehouse, and were served by a dust coated warehouseman.

Retail shops moaned about the undercutting of their profits.

The Internet had yet to arrive, but the lament from St. Normal & Co today is the same.

Interesting second post, yes, even the mighty St. Normal can have feet of clay.

Pelican, I'm not sure you would see the truth if it came up & kicked you in the shins.

To start with, every penny of GST goes to the states. Yes all that waste has been by labor state governments for some time. None of it went to any of John's anything, middle class or not.

Yes state governments are incredibly wasteful, but that's not going to change as long as there are bureaucracies. Given that, without the GST there would be much poorer schools, & not much public health by now.

Then you want to have heaps of exclusions. "The moment you have any exclusions the big end of town will run rings around your bureaucrats, & will avoid paying anything". A quote from an old mate, who just happened to be reasonably senior in the taxation department.

Yes it cost some work to administrate for business, I know, I was running one. However, you may be amazed if you knew how many businessmen quietly admitted later, that they had a much better handle on their businesses after installing systems to control GST. Yes, they still bitch about the GST, but privately admit, they make more profit because of it's introduction.

Sales tax was no easy beat either. I had some products where half of the product was subject to sales tax, & half wasn't. If you want a nightmare, try working that one out. Every such product required an individual ruling from the department.

Here we go, the proof that St. Hardly Normal is a whinger, and does not deserve to get any business from anyone.

Just bought a dryer today, a Whirlpool 6kg machine, how much?

Well at St. Hardly Normal, the whingers shop, they cost $499:
http://www.harveynorman.com.au/product/1256969567407/whirlpool-kg-wall-mounted-dryer

I paid $365.

Now, I paid GST on that Gerry, but I didn't buy it from you, did I?

If the local shop I bought it from can sell it at that price, how come St. Normal feels the need to squeeze the punters pocket so hard?