ACS backs govt, chides Amazon over GST

The Australian Computer Society (ACS) has backed the government’s position that multinationals should be required to collect GST, objecting to the planned move by Amazon to block Australian consumers from buying directly from its international sites.

Amazon recently revealed plans to restrict Australian consumers to purchasing only from the recently launched Australian Amazon store, which has a much smaller selection of goods and substantially less price competition.

The move is in response to the government’s new rules requiring online retailers to apply GST to goods under $1000 on international online purchases.

“It’s a reality of the internet era that countries have porous borders with respect to trade. That’s a great thing — it means that consumers have much more choice than ever before. But it doesn’t mean that multinationals get to operate outside the bounds of the law,” said ACS President Yohan Ramasundara.

“All other companies that operate in Australia have to apply GST to their sales, and Amazon should have to as well. We believe all companies selling to Australian consumers should operate on a level playing field with respect to collecting the GST.”

Ramasundara rejected Amazon’s justification for the restriction — the claim that technical and logistical challenges of applying GST to international purchases were too hard of an obstacle to overcome.

“Other major international retailers seem to have little problem with applying the tax to their imported goods. Surely as one the world’s largest companies, with an R&D budget of nearly US$23 billion, Amazon is capable of doing the same?”

He said offering Australians third-rate choices will harm Amazon in the long term by inhibiting the company’s growth in the market.

The ACS has meanwhile endorsed a new cyberwarfare deterrence policy paper from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and cybersecurity expert Chris Painter.

The report includes a set of recommendations that countries including Australia can take to deter future cyber attacks from nation states.

These include speeding up the active response time to cyber attacks, working with other countries to impose greater costs on bad actors and developing quick and effective responsive actions to attacks.

“Bad actors on the international stage have gotten away with too much for too long. Just last week there was a virus linked to an allegedly Russian-sponsored hacking group that infected half a million routers worldwide. In the last US Presidential election, Russian agents were allegedly engaged to use social media to spread disinformation as well as hacking the offices of the Democratic National Convention,” Ramasundara said.

“The reason this can occur is because up until now, there have been very few repercussions for state-based actors that engage in this kind of behaviour. We must make these attacks have consequences.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/momius

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