Australia:If you’re selling to Australia then there’s an important change you need to know about. eBay have started collecting GST (Goods and Services Tax – the equivalent to UK VAT) on all sales to Australia. There’s nothing that sellers need to do, eBay will automatically add 10% to cover the GST for any item is located outside Australia where the buyer selects a shipping address in Australia.
eBay will add GST to the order total at checkout. You’ll receive payment for the order value (item price + shipping costs) as usual, and eBay remits the GST portion to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).
The question that sellers have been asking is how Australian customs offices will know that the GST has been paid and will be remitted by eBay. We can now reveal that eBay are asking sellers to manually add their Australian Business Number (ABN) and a customs code to packages where GST has been collected. An ABN is a unique 11 digit number that identifies a business to the Australian government and community.
eBay ABN and Customs Code
eBay’s ABN # 64 652 016 681
Customs Code: PAID eBay say that later this year they will automatically insert their ABN and Customs code into the buyers shipping address. Until then however you’ll need to remember to do this manually which will be a pain for smaller sellers who will need to manually cut and paste or physically write the code onto packages and an even bigger pain for larger sellers with automated systems and multiple pickers and packers as they will have to intercept all eBay shipments for Australia and add the text. This applies for all orders up to AU $1,000.
Failure to add eBay’s ABN and Customs Code could result in buyers being double charged for GST, so this is definitely something you’ll want to make your shipping team aware of.
