Is this another Adobe rip-off ???

[Cage]

Arrived in my inbox today.

Thank you for being a valued Adobe customer. We wanted to share an important change to the tax you currently pay on your Adobe products and services.
Starting December 1, 2016, Adobe will begin to charge 10% GST on all goods and services to our customers in Australia. Learn more. Your next bill, on or after this date, will reflect the new tax rate. Note that this change does not affect the base price of your Adobe products.

Now I could be wrong here but my understanding is that the legislation requiring that GST be payable on all goods and services provided by overseas organisations does not come into effect until July 1, 2017.

It is also debatable whether the Australian government actually has the power to not only force overseas sellers to comply with this new legislation but to collect the proceeds from them.

So Adobe are going to charge me 10% GST on my CS6 Cloud subscription six months before they are obliged to.

Adobe, the Price Gougers Extraordinaire, will be hearing from me.

Oh, and I read somewhere that the Treasurer is only doing this to give local sellers an even playing field. Neglected to mention that the Government expects to cop $300 Billion pa from the exercise. Perhaps if most of the local sellers entered the real world with their pricing instead of asking MSRP, they may be more competitive.

[agb]

Adobe should always have been quoting GST on the products I think, sold by Adobe in Australia even if it is charged against and paid to their tax dodging office in Ireland. The EU should have pinned them when they did Apple.
If you are concerned why don't you contact the tax office and ask them about it, ie that you think Adobe are going to rip you off, and if they will be expecting Adobe to pay them the 10% as from 1 December. I think if Adobe put the 10% on your bill they will be bound to pass it on to the tax office. Of course now they will be able to claim the deduction of the 10% GST that they have paid on their inputs. Its always us the consumers who pay.
Perhaps I should have taken up the offer by on1 for their new raw processing software.

[ameerat42]

Whatter loader BALL-SHORTS!

When yer do write to em, givvem a serve from me

[Cage]

I phoned Adobe today and had a nice chat to a lad in India who had absolutely no idea of what was irking me. His constant come-back line was that all Adobe's Australian customers got the email.

My next call will be to the ATO.

[ameerat42]

Hmm! Of course, they're right...
Now, if you contact the ATO, they will probably give you an equally tractionless reply,
possibly predicated along the lines that they cannot discuss non-you tax affairs.

Nevertheless, try it, and if you do get nowhere, cobble the responses from both entities
into a lament to an ombudsperson...

Essentially it will be one of trying to ascertain if the the GST surcharge is being legally
levied (and remitted).

Ult., don't buy Adobe products.

[Hawthy]

Adobe are likely voluntarily complying with Australian legislation ahead of the mandatory date of 1 July 2017. I say "voluntarily" because, seriously, how would the government enforce collection of GST on a digital product supplied by a company with its headquarters in Ireland?
I have received an email telling me that GST will be charged from 1 December on my PS CC 2015 subscription. It is only $1.20 per month and I spill more than that most days, so I am not as ropeable as Kev. I am sure that a company the size of Adobe will pass on any GST that they collect. It is all about reputation risk.
Just smile and think of that deficit being wound back.

[ameerat42]

Adobe ... back.

[Cage]

Adobe are likely voluntarily complying with Australian legislation ahead of the mandatory date of 1 July 2017. I say "voluntarily" because, seriously, how would the government enforce collection of GST on a digital product supplied by a company with its headquarters in Ireland?
I have received an email telling me that GST will be charged from 1 December on my PS CC 2015 subscription. It is only $1.20 per month and I spill more than that most days, so I am not as ropeable as Kev. I am sure that a company the size of Adobe will pass on any GST that they collect. It is all about reputation risk.
Just smile and think of that deficit being wound back.

Andrew, it's not the $1.00 per month, it's the principal.

I have trouble understanding how a company as large as Adobe could get this wrong. Although this is the same company that was asked to explain it's price gouging tactics not so long ago.

[Hawthy]

My take on it is that from July they will be obliged to comply. They wish to be seen as being good corporate citizens by complying earlier and you are an unfortunate casualty. It is not a conspiracy to siphon dollars from the country.

[Cage]

Andrew I think you are missing my point. I'll give Adobe the benefit of the doubt and concur that they may just be trying to improve their corporate image, and get some brownie points from the ATO.

However they are stepping outside the legislated (?) guidelines. It would be like all states introducing a maximum speed limit of 80 klm/hr, effective from July 1, 2017, and then fining everyone who exceeded that limit from December 1, 2016 onward.

[Hamster]

Adobe are likely voluntarily complying with Australian legislation ahead of the mandatory date of 1 July 2017. I say "voluntarily" because, seriously, how would the government enforce collection of GST on a digital product supplied by a company with its headquarters in Ireland?
I have received an email telling me that GST will be charged from 1 December on my PS CC 2015 subscription. It is only $1.20 per month and I spill more than that most days, so I am not as ropeable as Kev. I am sure that a company the size of Adobe will pass on any GST that they collect. It is all about reputation risk.
Just smile and think of that deficit being wound back.

Yes, this.

Or switch to Capture One and remove Adobe from your workflow.

[MrQ]

I felt much the same when I got their email the other day. It was even more annoying to see it had been added onto my November bill as well (I'm pretty sure I'm not paying in advance). It would have been nice to get the opportunity to switch to an annual plan before this dodgy addition of GST.

[arthurking83]

Yes, this.

Or switch to Capture One and remove Adobe from your workflow.

Or try Affinity(previously Mac only) now in beta form for Windows.
(it's free to try at the mo, so get it while it's hot).

I'm having a bit of play and it seems to work OK-ish.
(ps. it's also a one off purchase cost, not subscription )

[ameerat42]

Downloading the beta version for Win now from:
https://affinity.serif.com/forum/ind...15036-windows/

[arthurking83]

Downloading the beta version for Win now from:
....

I just posted a small review and obviously forgot to add a link

I reckon you may like it's 'ability' .. but I dunno how it'll go handling Sigma's raw files.

[ameerat42]

A HH_HHHORROOBBle yellow colour

[mpb]

The way the legislation stands at the moment, as I understand it, is that Adobe (and all companies) should always have been charging the GST and passing it on the the ATO.

It does not matter that they are an overseas company, if the goods or services are supplied and used in Australia, the GST should be applied.

Adobe are not benefiting from charging the GST, in fact it would be costing them to collect it and passing it on.

The real question is why they have not been doing it all along.

[Cage]

The way the legislation stands at the moment, as I understand it, is that Adobe (and all companies) should always have been charging the GST and passing it on the the ATO.

It does not matter that they are an overseas company, if the goods or services are supplied and used in Australia, the GST should be applied.

Adobe are not benefiting from charging the GST, in fact it would be costing them to collect it and passing it on.

The real question is why they have not been doing it all along.

I beg to differ Mark.

There was a legislated tax free threshold of $1000.00. That is now being withdrawn, from July 1, 2017.

From the ATO website:

GST on low value imported goods

The government has announced that from 1 July 2017, if you are a non-resident supplier who sells low value goods to any consumer based in Australia and you meet the registration turnover threshold of A$75,000 you will need to:

register for the Australian GST
report and pay GST to us.

This includes all taxable goods that have a value equal to or less than A$1,000.

Law for this measure is yet to be enacted.

This also applies to services and digital products.

GST on services and digital products

From 1 July 2017, goods and services tax (GST) will apply to cross-border supplies of digital products and other services imported by Australian consumers.

This includes digital products such as streaming or downloading of movies, music, apps, games and e-books as well as services such as architectural or legal services.

If you meet the registration turnover threshold of A$75,000 and make these supplies, you will be required to register for GST.]

Note the last line in the first quote: "Law for this measure is yet to be enacted".

Should be fun for the ATO policing this...

and you meet the registration turnover threshold of A$75,000 you will need to:

[arthurking83]

I think if you purchase something from an overseas Co and it cost less than $1K there's no GST liable.

The issue is that you aren't actually purchasing a service from here in Aus, as the Adobe servers, Company .. service are all OS based.

If you buy a battery for your camera from O/S do you pay the GST?
When you buy a camera (eg. item worth over $1K) .. you yourself are then liable to pay the GST, not the company you purchased from.

The change in GST could be either:

purchase price related:
related to the onus now being on the vendor to pay the GST component(unlikely)
The service, while not provided from Aus proper, is a service provided to a client in Aus.
Something else to close off some loophole.

My feeling is that it's related to the service not being provided from here in Aus by an O/S company.
That is, irrespective that you're using it here, it's origin is not in Aus and that the price is below $1K in any given year.

So now they're making it a requirement that O/S companies have to register for sales taxes if they supply goods to us in Aus.

There was a OECD forum a while back where all countries involved agreed to adhere to each others tax rules.

I'm pretty sure that GST type taxes in the USA are fully state based(not nationwide), so my guess is that Adobe listed the service in a state that doesn't apply and GST type taxes.
But from memory if that service was supplied to a consumer in a state that did have GST type taxes, then those taxes were payable.
So if they operated the service from <insert state name here> that didn't apply GST taxes to services, then no GST type taxes were liable.

Now tho, if that country was part of the agreement reached re GST taxes, then Adobe had to register for Aus GST to sell stuff here, as well as Japan, and the UK .. etc.

Question is, how does it now affect any or all overseas purchases from the likes of HK/China/etc?
And what happens to those companies that don't or aren't registered for Aus GST purposes.

- - - Updated - - -

....

Should be fun for the ATO policing this...

I think, initially it will be flouted and ignored by many companies.

But longer term, I think it will be enforced if the company was in the group of 100 or so countries agreeing to the system.

So as things all come out in the wash, an eg. could look like this in 5 or 10 years time: company A in Slovenia disregarding our GST compliance requirements for the past may get a knock on the virtual door by the tax dept in Slovenia due to a request from the ATO having found out that they sold $75,001 worth of services to Aus.
Unless customer pay by cash to an O/S co. .. I doubt that you can hide $75K per year of Aus funds travelling via wire to your shores!

[Cage]

Arthur, as I said previously, it's not paying the additional $1.00 per month on my CS6 subscription that I object to, it's the principle, and violation of the yet to be legislated changes to how GST is levied.

Adobe's offshore divisions have no legal obligation to charge GST until July 1, 2017. And I can assure you that my CS6 download came from Adobe.com, and not from Adobe.com.au.