NZ and mayb AUS buyers (Another thread but an important one)

[Fallenae]

Hey guys I got a message from an Oculus fella. Sure we all know its USD now and I can come to terms with the price. But I'm still not 100% sure about the GST thing and didn't really get a solid answer here. Palmers tweet says extra money is for local tax, this guys says regulatory fees. Do you think its a possibility it could be shipped with GST paid sticker or something? I just highly doubt it, based on past experience.

[–]to TheTwistgibber sent 1 day ago

Hi can you confirm is $699 for NZ is in USD? Also is NZ GST included and paid for?



[–]from TheTwistgibber sent 48 minutes ago

Yes, it is in USD. The price is inclusive of all regulatory fees.

http://www.whatsmyduty.org.nz/whats-my-duty website is quoting $236.85 and you have to register a client code by mail beforehand because its over $1000NZ???

Item Duty
Computers
Value: 699.00 USD

NZ Value: 1,043.28 NZD

Duty: 0.00 NZD

GST: 156.49 NZD
156.49 NZD
GST on freight 31.12 NZD
Total 187.61 NZD
Entry fees* 49.24 NZD
Amount due 236.85 NZD

*Entry fees:
Once the threshold of $60 of duty and/or GST payable is reached, then a Customs import entry transaction fee (IETF) of NZ$29.26 (GST inclusive) is payable. Please note that the $60 threshold does not apply to tobacco and alcohol products. Entry fees are collected on these two regardless of the amount. A Ministry for Primary Industries biosecurity system entry levy (MPI Levy) of $19.98 (GST inclusive) is also collected by Customs. The total fees equal NZ$49.24 (GST inclusive)

This is all way to complicated for me just to buy a toy for me games.

Could someone from Oculus PLEASE just let me know that either:
-Yes, all GST is covered and it will be shipped and delivered to my door.
-No, I will have to get my shipment from customs after paying GST and fees.
-Sorry, we really don't know.

So that I can put my mind to rest and just look forward to April..

[onefang]

"kojack" wrote:

"Aus21" wrote:
but in doing so must collect in AUD

Why? 10% of us dollars is the same as 10% of aus dollars. There's no difference in how much they collected.

If it's the law, then it's the law. No one ever accused politicians of making sense when they make laws. On the other hand, I can see why, Australians know how much an Australian dollar is worth, but might not know how much a USA dollar is worth. So makes sense to tell aussies the aussie sales tax in aussie dollars.

The law is the law, and from what we are seeing, Oculus may be breaking Australian law in a couple of ways.

[Anonymous]

As many stated here already: GST should be charged in AUD and has to be itemized. Otherwise Australian customs will not accept it. All they see now is a base price of USD649.
If the shipping is from the states, then no GST has to be charged. I don't know why Oculus registered in Australia, but this is currently the worst solution and highest price for the customer.

The real price should be

US$599 base price +US$120* shipping = US$719

which is AU$1030, more than AU$200 less than what we will have to pay now if the conversion drops and we have to pay additional import duties of %10


*as mentioned before by someone: Oculus is charging $120 shipping + 10% "GST" on that, which results in the $132 we are seeing

[Fallenae]

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/c ... ?context=3

[michealv]

Wow that response from Mr palmer...he's pretty much saying do whatever you feel like we're not worried.

I am going to watch this space. Worst case scenario is oculus pulls the plug on Aus/NZ and we can all get $$$$d

[onefang]

"I can't throw anyone under the bus." Except us aussies and kiwis.

[onefang]

Though that does make me wonder, why would explaining the truth to us be "throwing someone under a bus"? Shit just gets piled on thicker and deeper, it's not helping Oculus.

[blanes]

Palmer's answer was strange to say the least. Wish someone had asked him why it is that Oculus has an Australian registered business in Oculus LLC and yet Australian Rift payments went instead to Oculus Ireland. Perhaps he has no clue or just doesn't care how Oculus accounting and financials department conducts business. He isn't the CEO after all and with the title of Founder perhaps he has no responsibility or great interest in the business side of operations. There is nothing wrong with that, but we would have hoped he might have taken the question more seriously. Just goes to show what a small, insignificant and inconsequential market we are. :shock:

[onefang]

My Australian analysis, take two.

First, the relevant bits from my order again, only summarised. All amounts are in US$.

original_offer_price: $649.00
shipping_handling_fee: $120.00
shipping_handling_fee_tax: $12.00
tax: $59.00
total: $781.00

I was thinking about this, and I noticed it doesn't actually add up the way I thought it did last time -

649 + 120 + 12 + 59 = 840

So, what happens if we assume that the 649 actually includes the listed tax on 599 (GST of 10% in Australia, which would indeed be $59) -

599 + 10% = 649
649 + 120 + 12 = 781

Aha!

Still leaving the mystery of the high shipping and handling fee. My guess is that the person that Palmer doesn't want to throw under a bus is the person that badly negotiated shipping fees with some rip off courier company, and they are stuck with it. Throwing them under a bus is too good for them, bus fare here is less than the shipping tax.

I wonder if I can get most of this inflated shipping fee back by selling the controller, and both games? After checking what the predicted exchange rate changes might be over the next few months, I've decided to put aside the money for that in my PayPals Euro bucket right now. US$ is looking to go down compared to the Euro, so I might end up saving a bit there. Otherwise, can my celebrity of choice be one of the Minogue sisters please? B-)


Edit: one of these days I'll be able to do maths right, surprisingly I was really really good at maths in high school, though that was back in the '70s. ... take three -

599 + 10% = 658
658 + 120 + 12 = 790

Still wrong, but this time in our favour for the GST portion. Their accountant should join their shipping negotiator under that bus.

[radd]

It is simpler than you think.

We are getting the Rift cheaper than the US is.

They're paying $599 before sales tax, which varies by state (and in some cases by city).

We're paying $590 before sales tax, which is our 10% GST adding $59 for a total of $649.

In Santa Monica, California, the sales tax is 9.5%, which on goods of $599 is $56.91. So they would be paying $655.91.

[metalnwood]

Yep, I dont see the big deal TBH. I dont think there is any tax evasion going on but the shipping is not cheap.

I reckon that are having to pay an extra distributor in each country so we are paying for shipping a couple of times behind the scenes.

I was just reading about a guy that did a kickstarter and sold a hell of a lot of item, many more than he thought he would. He ended up making nothing out of the whole enterprise because of shipping.

He didn't realise that for every hundred that were sent a few would never arrive and then he would have to deal with the hassles or the refunds or sending another one etc, etc. It pretty much accounted for as much time as he put in to the project and all of the profits. The next time he said he would use another company to deal with everything to do with shipping.

It wouldnt surprise me at all that oculus found this out themselves the first time around. They are not an amazon and wont have a shipping department to deal exclusively with issues like that.