My partner purchased an item an American website.
She was charged GST on her purchase. She wants to return the item, but the seller is not sure how to refund her the GST.
How do you get the GST back on a refunded item to an overseas website?
How to Claim GST Back from Returned Item to Overseas Website?
Daemos on 17/10/2018 - 21:55
Comments
If this is eBay, they are the handle the GST, it should get refunded autoamtically proportionally to the refund amount.
No it's an American website (I'm not sure which one) they charged GST, and they claim, they cannot refund the GST as that was paid to the Australian Government.
Of course they can. They can offset the GST refund with another GST-inclusive sale. If they don't have another GST-include sale, they can apply for a refund or leave it as a credit in their ATO account, until they have another GST-inclusive sale.
Local companies do this all the time. There's no reason why it should be different for a foreign company that's GST registered.
This is a joke right?
Lol.
huh? Have you ever filed a BAS?
Do you even debits and credits?
How long ago did you purchase the item? If not that long ago, they're probably still holding onto the GST amount so they can just not remit that portion. Or else, just claim it back/ as deduction later.
Is it worth returning it?
The website would have handled the GST… Why don't you reveal the store name?
The website is https://www.everlane.com/
My partner asked and they told her they cannot directly refund the GST they charged to her.
They can, they just don't want to.
There is a difference.
Sure, they can spend their time chasing a tax return from a foreign government or they could just not waste their time LMAO.
The Australian Government is a turd plain and simple. They've made life worse for any Australian citizen that wants to get a good price on foreign items.
$20 says that they're not even paying the GST to the government and are just keeping it for themselves.
They should be able to. I regularly shop at Mr Porter (UK website) and they charge GST on every purchase. Have done returns with them and GST was also refunded back.
Sure, but is Mr Porter actually getting the GST back from the Govt or are they just taking the hit for the PR points?
Don't know. Not working for them. What I know is that they refund it back. And this is actually the first time I heard a company not able to refund back the GST.
They don't pay the GST to the government the second they ship the product.
So they'll just pay a lump sum every so often (monthly, quarterly or yearly depending on turn over), minus the refunds, just like a business in Australia does.
I can understand the store's point of view. The government forces collection of GST on it's behalf. It doesn't force refunds and money has gone to the government. The government took the lazy option and put the burden on sellers to collect. It's messy.
To be clear the Australian Government is not forcing anyone other than Australian citizens because it has no jurisdiction outside Australia. It has been transferring their money to the super rich for about 40 years now and I wonder when it will get bad enough for people to not vote for more of the same.
Umm 'never'?
Remember their dictum "imagine a boot stomping on a human face forever". Well that's what most people expect or have been conditioned to at this point and no amount of theft and tyranny will be enough to get 'most' people to overcome their fear of 'voting differently' in order for things to actually change.
Yes I am cynical.
Who charged it?
If it was the website that sold the item, they should issue a refund.
If it was someone else, they talk to them.