[New Zealand] Sales tax is now on overseas purchases
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All on Sun Oct 2 14:58:56 2016
XPost: rec.arts.tv
According to an item in yesterday's newspaper, from 1 October 2016
purchases from overseas companies such as Netflix and Amazon will now
have to incur the usual 15% GST (Government Stupidity... err, Sales
Tax).
The excuse is to "level the playing field for local companies" ... but
that's complete nonsense since it will /still/ often be much cheaper to
buy books, etc. from overseas and ship them, than it is to buy from the
greedy over-priced local retailers.
The reality is that the move, along with chasing big overseas companies
for "avoided" income tax, is simply to get more money into Government
pockets so it can be wasted on idiotic pet projects, white elephant
ideas, and parliament minister perks. :-(
On a side-note, the fools in the media often use Apple (via their
online store and iTunes store) as an example of an overseas company
that doesn't pay GST. The fact is that Apple's online stores have
already had GST on their prices for years and presumably already pay
that to the New Zealand Government.
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