{"id":166066,"date":"2018-06-03T06:15:52","date_gmt":"2018-06-03T10:15:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=166066"},"modified":"2018-06-03T06:15:52","modified_gmt":"2018-06-03T10:15:52","slug":"amazon-to-block-australians-from-global-websites-due-to-tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/06\/03\/amazon-to-block-australians-from-global-websites-due-to-tax\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon to block Australians from global websites due to tax"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Amazon<\/a>
Amazon will block Australians from buying from its international e-commerce websites and restrict them to a smaller local platform from July in response to new tax rules that consumer advocates fear will reduce the range of choice for customers in Australia. (Photo<\/a>: Amazon.com\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

CANBERRA, Australia \u2014\u00a0Amazon\u00a0will block Australians from buying from its international e-commerce websites and restrict them to a smaller local platform from July in response to new tax rules that consumer advocates fear will reduce the range of choice for customers in Australia.<\/p>\n

Shoppers visiting the U.S. store Amazon.com will be redirected to the Australian version, Amazon.com.au, from July 1 when Australia starts applying new tax rules,\u00a0Amazon\u00a0said in a statement on Friday.<\/p>\n

From that date, Australia will impose a 10 per cent consumption tax on online retailers for goods bought from overseas sites and shipped to Australia. The tax currently only applies to purchases above AU$1,000 ($757).<\/p>\n

Amazon\u00a0said it regretted the change which it blamed on the new tax rules.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we regret any inconvenience this may cause customers, we have had to assess the workability of the legislation as a global business with multiple international sites,\u201d\u00a0Amazon\u00a0said. \u201cThis will allow us to provide our customers with continued access to international selection and remain compliant with the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Australian\u00a0Amazon\u00a0site provides access to the more than 60 million products.\u00a0Amazon\u00a0offers 480 million products in the United States.<\/p>\n

Treasurer Scott Morrison ruled out doing any \u201cspecial deal\u201d for the second biggest company in the world run by the richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos.<\/p>\n

Morrison doubted\u00a0Amazon\u00a0had difficulty with Australian taxes when it had the technology to cope with different tax regimes in Britain and Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s disappointing that\u00a0Amazon\u00a0would take this out on consumers in Australia, but that’s their commercial decision,\u201d Morrison told reporters. \u201cIf someone takes their bat and ball and goes home, well, Australians will form a view about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The government would not back down on the new tax rules, which would raise AU$300 million a year, Morrison said.<\/p>\n

Consumer campaigner Christopher Zinn said Australian shoppers will notice a significant reduction in options when browsing the internet for goods.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnline shopping has put the world at your fingertips but now that world has shrunk,\u201d Zinn told Australian Broadcasting Corp.<\/p>\n

Another U.S. online retailer, eBay, said it was changing its global systems so that Australian shoppers could still buy items from anywhere in the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe won’t block Aussie buyers, redirect them or require them to pretend they are located overseas. Australians will continue to be able to buy from any eBay site,\u201d eBay said in a statement.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CANBERRA, Australia \u2014\u00a0Amazon\u00a0will block Australians from buying from its international e-commerce websites and restrict them to a smaller local platform …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":166067,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[5372,23646,1470],"class_list":["post-166066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-amazon","tag-australians","tag-tax","mauthors-rod-mcguirk","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}