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.