It's early days, but Amazon may have misread the Australian market
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“It’s a fundamental problem,” says Andrew Charlton, director of AlphaBeta, an economic consulting firm, and a former adviser to Kevin Rudd. “We have a system of taxation that is national, and economies are becoming increasingly global. And we are in the eye of the storm of that transition.”
Impose a tax on something, and it will lead to bad outcomes for consumers who purchase that thing. (At least when viewed through the narrow prism of prices – or in this case, access to a wider variety of products).
Yet consumers are also citizens, who depend on government services, and the legislation that Amazon claims forced its hand did have bipartisan support.
“We have bifurcated mental accounting on this issue,” says Charlton. “The idea that multinationals should pay their fair share of tax is well understood by people, but on the other hand, they don’t want restrictions on things. It’s a very convenient and all too common human disconnect”.
Article source: http://smh.com.au/sport/hockey-canberras-anna-flanagan-on-cusp-of-hockeyroos-return-20170925-gyol80.html
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