"There is definitely a strong position for Australia
Post to grow and prosper."
Mr Hockey, who is reviewing the GST with the states,
said last month that the tax could be applied to all
items bought online from overseas, no matter how
little they cost.
But Mr Edstein fears such an approach will "clog up"
international trade.
"We are obviously concerned that are considering
taking it down to zero," Mr Edstein said.
"We don't want to see this issue of clogging up the
border and putting more cost at the border.
"We'd rather see that processed streamlined more so.
We want to facilitate trade."
Mr Hockey has suggested collecting GST at the
source, such as Amazon and other global e-commerce
giants, rather than from customers at the borders.
Although Mr Edstein said that would be the ideal
model, he wasn't convinced it would work.
"From what we see, we are not 100 per cent sure
whether they are going to be able to collect it at
source. You have obviously got to negotiate
different tax treaties etc with these
organisations."
Instead Mr Edstein suggested that international
online parcels have the same duty free treatment as
goods bought physically overseas and brought back in
air luggage.
According to the immigration department, most
personal items such as new clothing, footwear and
personal hygiene and grooming products can be
brought into the country with your baggage tax free.
General goods such as electronic equipment, cameras,
perfumes and watches, are tax free to the value of
$900.
"Our position as an
industry is that we should align it with the duty
free threshold for passengers. Treat it similarly to
that," said Mr Edstein.
"We are also seeing
other countries that are increasing there
threshold." Research from Switzerland's HEC
University of Lausanne in 2014 recommended the tax
free threshold on overseas parcels imported to the
European Union should be lifted from 22 euro ($33)
to 80 euro ($120).
The research cited a
taxation report from the European Commission, which
found: "consignments falling between 22 and 150 euro
in value create an unnecessary burden for both
customs administrations and parcel
operators/couriers".
"Furthermore,
anticipated increases in international trade and
freight volumes, together with lower operational
costs (and potentially lower fees to their
customers) will facilitate the development and
market expansion of the whole sector," the report
found.
Mr Edstein called on
the three-year term for the federal government to be
lifted to four or five years to allow political
leaders time to implement genuine reform and escape
the short-term goals of governing until the next
election.
"As soon as they get
into government they try to push through major
political reform… and by the time they attempt to do
that they are in election mode, so to me it's just
too short," Mr Edstein said.
Source:
The Sydney Morning Herald, dated 18/08/2015. |