My parents were on an international flight last week and when processing GST refunds there were a couple of regulations that resulted in them not being able to claim GST back on a couple of items. I've never heard of those before and was wondering if anyone's came across these before:
As Australian residents, they were only able to claim GST for items with a total price of $900 if they were bringing them back to Australia. Now, I know that you have to declare anything over $900 when entering Australia but I've never heard of anyone being denied GST refund on items over $900 when leaving Australia. And this wasn't per item, it was price of total items which meant that you could never get more than $90 back.
My mum bought some fairly expensive jewellery for her relatives that were over $900 and had to argue that they were gifts in order to claim GST on them. The TRS lady did not believe that they were gifts and marked all the packaging, took all my mum's details and said that she would be thoroughly checked on return to make sure that she wasn't bringing them back to Australia.
One of the invoices has the word "reprint" on it (Ted camera's for a GoPro my dad bought thanks to Ozbargain!) and she would not process it because of that. The "reprint" is on the original invoice Ted's camera sent along with the gopro so it's as original as we could get it. She stamped the invoice with 'Rejected' straight away without even consulting my parents.
My parents were pretty upset, not so much because they weren't able to claim back GST on a couple of items since those were just a bonus, but by how rude the TRS lady was. So I thought I'd ask to see if anyone's came across these regulations before or if my parents just came across a more stricter (and definitely ruder) than usual TRS officer?
Jewelry is always a tricky one, especially some people try to claim TRS on their engagement ring which most likely IS coming back to the country.