June 6, 2018 9:00am by David Farrar

Amazon tax backfires

The Government’s plan to require foreign firms to collect GST on goods they ship to New Zealanders from October next year – its so-called “Amazon tax” – is suddenly in genuine trouble.

Australia is the canary down this particular coalmine, and right now that canary is looking pretty poorly. …

Amazon has decided that rather than go to that trouble, it will instead block Australians from buying products through its main website.

Instead, Australians will only be allowed to shop at Amazon Australia, which for years at least looks set to offer only an inferior range of goods at higher prices.

Amazon Australia has just 10% of the products of the global Amazon.

We may be even worse off in NZ. There is no NZ Amazon store. So the local Amazon tax may see Kiwis unable to buy anything at all off Amazon.