Hey guys, I've presented this and my teacher says I did a good job and convinced him, I'll be getting the mark tomorrow, but I just wanted your opinions on my work.
Should more online purchases be taxed?
Australians indulge in shopping online mainly due to convenience and flexibility. Consumers have access to online shopping 24/7, and one does not have to worry about traffic or parking delays. Online shopping is even more popular for finding products that are at a discounted price especially from international retail stores. Products and items that are not available in Australia can be sourced and purcha sed online which is another attraction. This issue will affect everybody at some stage, big brand retailors want to implement GST on all online products purchased. Local retail businesses are losing revenue as more Australians prefer and continue to shop online which is creating chaos. Large businesses are also taking advantage of Australia’s economical state and are abusing it.
Against: Lower prices are not the only thing that influence consumers to stay away from local retail businesses and use the online stores instead
<Benefits of shopping online slide>
The internet has revolutionized the way Australians shop, because of the numerous advantages and benefits of shopping online consumers prefer to shop online rather than shop in a traditional retail store. Convenience plays a large role in online shopping, you can be anywhere and still purchase products which gets delivered right to your door step, or electronic goods such as e-books or computer software which you can download right after your payment is confirmed, you do not have to deal with annoying crowds, ignorant customers, bad customer service, driving to the store, kids crying at the store for toys or waiting for the shop assistant to finally help you. This is a great advantage and gives us the ability to shop 24/7.
Online stores give you a greater variety; you can purchase products in different colours and sizes which you cannot find locally. One has the ability to quickly search for a product and read the reviews rather than purchase the item and end up disliking the quality.Prices are also another contributing factor for favouring online shopping over local retail stores; one can purchase products straight from the manufacturer or sellers without the need of a middle-man. By doing so this saves a large amount of money, time and effort. When middle-men are involved the price of products is increased due to advertisement fees, shipping services and tax .Certificates are a necessity to meet requirements in order to legally sell the product in a retail store. This is big factor which increases the price of a product.
Large retail enterprises such as Harvey Norman, Myer, and Target to name a few are strongly advocating to the Australian government to enforce a GST levy on overseas websites. Their argument is that retail is doing poorly and are losing profit and having to implement cuts by closing down stores and letting go of staff. Borders is an example of a business that earned very little due to online companies. Yet they have been making large profits by overcharging Australians hundreds of dollars. This financial strain on society is unacceptable, consumers have finally woken up to Australia’s high price standard and have switched to shopping online to find themselves a better deal.
Against: Implementing GST on international businesses will cost us in the long run, it will cost a large amount of time and money to implement, and will not earn back all of the profit expected.
<Forcing GST on overseas websites slide>
Robert Jeremenko from the tax institutes, senior council argues that it will cost approximately $500 million dollars to implement. This $500 million can be utilized to fund the $300 million cuts from tafe, and can also be used to fund schools, teachers and education rather than applying G.S.T to online companies.
Implementing a law that forces international online stores to charge GST on products will be close to impossible unless Australia’s government has some sort of agreement with countries that are delivering goods purchased via the internet. For store owners it is possible to move their online store to Sweden and continue selling products with no GST applied, which would make it impossible to shut down, an example is The Pirate Bay, one of the largest websites for searching to download illegal contents. The governments have failed to shut it down.
Against: Big businesses are taking advantage of the state that Australia is currently in, higher prices.
Companies such as Adobe, Apple and Microsoft have recently come under fire regarding the prices set for their products sold in Australia in comparison to America and United Kingdom.
<Adobe slide>
This is one of the biggest overcharges by Adobe in Australia at the moment which is unacceptable and shows how unrealistic these prices are, someone calculated that they could get fly from Sydney to Los Anglos, buy the same product, fly back save $601 and get frequent flyer points.
<Steam slide>
Steam is one of the biggest gaming platforms, this picture clearly shows that even old games are still overpriced and the prices seem to never change from the moment they release the game, Modern Warfare 2 a game released in 2009, slightly over 3 years costs as much as the newest Call of Duty game, this is clearly unfair towards Australian gamers.
<Apple slide>
Apple is one of the largest businesses and one can see even Apple is overcharging Australians with their MacBooks, this does not apply only to their MacBooks but applies to a range of products offered by Apple.
Apple charges 30% and higher for iTunes downloads, for no specific reason, that is exactly the same as the American version and is just a download, yet for some unknown reason we pay more.
In March of this year an investigation will commence into why Apple, Adobe and Microsoft have set unreasonable prices for their products in Australia.
Overall, online shopping is extremely beneficial for shoppers who have little to no time to purchase things, to save large amounts of money, purchase products not being sold here with greater variety. Australia’s current rate for products is unacceptable and creates a financial strain on consumers who don’t make enough money to spend hundreds of dollars in excess just to buy locally. Large companies have shown to take advantage of the Australian economy, and the only reason I see fit that they are charging us extra is because of Australian’s willingness to accept the price and pay for the product without putting up a fight.
Here's a link to the presentation powerpoint if you're interested, I couldn't upload here because its 900KB
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/63705517/Should%20more%20online%20purchases%20be%20taxed.pptxThanks!
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