eBay sellers Told to Include GST

noisymime writes "The Age is running a story on how The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has requested eBay Australia to enforce the inclusion of the GST on all sales/auctions. Previously this was recommended but not a requirement. Is this reasonable protection for buyers or simply a frustration for everyone? What about all the other sales and auction sites available to Australians?" Moreover, how will this apply to other countries with GSTs - or sales tax?

Comments

Make them include postage!

[grahamsz]

Or at least have an option so you can display search results as total price including postage.

I'm so sick of seeing "bargains" on ebay which are $1 with $16 postage.

Personally i'd love it if they had a filter for "Items which start at 1c with no reserve" so that i can filter out all the businesses who simply retail on ebay.

Re:Make them include postage!

[lithiumfox]

There is an option on ebay that allows you to see shipping price on the main listing page along with the selling prices. If an item that actually sells for 12 dollars ebay and the shipping is 3 dollars, some people will list it that way. Others will list it as 1 dollar for the item and 14 dollars for shipping, thats because ebay does not charge you fees on shipping, but on the item alone. Sellers save a lot of money on seller fees doing this. A deal on ebay is not just the cost of the item, but the item + shipping, if not you can get just get it somewhere else.

eBay are still Tax Cheats

[B747SP]

What I find really interesting about this little hoo-haa is that, whilst eBay are pretending to be good citizen and making sure that buyers and sellers do The Right Thing(tm) with respect to Australian Goods and Services Tax (GST), they're cheating the Australian Government out of massive amounts of tax revenue at the same time.

Take an example: I sold an item on ebay.com.au recently. I'm an Australian tax paying Australian citizen living in Australia, I used the services of the Australian eBay subsidiary to sell an item to another Australian citizen/resident/taxpayer, made the financial dealing in Australian dollars between Australian banks. Following the deal, eBay Australia sent me an invoice for services rendered, a fee in Australian dollars which they require to be paid to my choice of an Australian bank account or by mailing a cheque or money order to an Australian address.

So I ask for an Australian Tax Invoice in accordance with Australian law. It seemed a reasonable request to me.

Now, all of a sudden, eBay are dancing around alternating between calling themselves "eBay Inc.", an American company, and "eBay AG" (what is that, Swiss, or German or something). They won't answer communications about Australian tax, their 'support' monkeys just hit the 'random diversion' button and send off irrelevant "Thank-you for contacting eBay support, here's some information about... a Duck" type replies.

I've had it with the fockers, after this little carry on, I'm gonna start whingeing at the tax office and the consumer whassname!