Traditional retailers want online retailers to be hit with tax on importers
Both Colorado Clothes and Borders and Angus Robertson Bookstores have recently closed down in Australia. The internet is being blamed, although the case is less clear for Colorado than it is for Borders. The biggest issue with the rise in internet retailing is that internet retailers need to employ less people or employ people outside of Australia and send products to Australia. This is one of the arguments that traditional retailers are using for a campaign to put a tax on any imported products which carry a value of more than $100. Of course, this tax would have little benefit for clothing or books. Nor would it affect the music retail sector, which is another area being significantly affected by the rise in Internet shopping.
Currently, Australians who are shopping online and buying from overseas will pay a tax on any items costing over $1000, which applies to relatively few items. The exchange rate is one major reason why more people are not only shopping online but shopping from stores based in other countries. The strong Australian dollar means there are bargains to be had even once delivery is paid from places as far away as the United States and Europe.
Some would question why the strong dollar isn’t seeing prices of imported products in Australian bricks and mortar stores come down, but, of course, a large part of the cost of a product in a store is to cover rent, utilities and wages. Utilities and rent are particularly on the rise in Australia, pushing stores costs up further and affecting their ability to compete.
The Australian National Retail Association (ANRA), made up of giant retailers, such as Myer, David Jones, Coles and Woolworths, are the ones pushing for the threshold for import taxes to be changed to $100. They argue that if trends continue towards Internet shopping reaching similar proportions to that in the US and UK that it could be worth $22 Billion and $9 Billion of that would be in offshore sales. This would certainly be a large amount of value to be lost out of the economy and Australian retailers may argue that they are more likely to sell Australian rather than imported products. In reality, however, many of the products sold in the stores of the members of ANRA are imported, so the benefit to the economy would be lessened.
Just wish to say your article is as amazing. The clearness in your post is simply spectacular and i could assume you are an expert on this subject. Well with your permission let me to grab your RSS feed to keep up to date with forthcoming post. Thanks a million and please continue the gratifying work.