Kindle books and social ramifications

[Samson]

I am only interested in access to all the E book titles currently, this is my key query.
Can Australians access all titles, this is what I am not clear about.

 

[Darat]

I am only interested in access to all the E book titles currently, this is my key query.
Can Australians access all titles, this is what I am not clear about.

Depends on the publisher, there have been a few titles I've tried to get that were not available in the UK and then you are stuffed as you can only use your local Kindle store.

 

[Samson]

Depends on the publisher, there have been a few titles I've tried to get that were not available in the UK and then you are stuffed as you can only use your local Kindle store.

This is weird, there must be something simple I am missing, but I have heard this. I just checked on a title I bought, and yes I could have bought it through the Australian website.
I remember the Knox book was banned from UK purchase, but surely that is a special case.
Ok maybe it is simply a case of the English publisher preferring you buy the more expensive hard copy.
And now I think about it I believe you could get the Kindle Knox in England.

 

[elgarak]

So far, there's no amazon.dk.
Whenever I buy stuff from amazon.com, also Kindle books, the Danish VAT is added to the price by Amazon and, I assume, transferred to the Danish state.


ETA: It may be an EU thing, I don't know.

I live in Germany. As opposed to you, there is an amazon.de.

Amazon does not allow me to buy e-books from amazon.com. I can buy everything else there, even physical books, but not e-books. I have to use amazon.de for e-books. I assume this is due to peculiarities of German publishing law (prices fixed for books published by German publishers – they're not free selecting the prices of e-books, which are tied to the prices of physical editions), also, I presume, taxes, and the wireless delivery system (since amazon needs to get special deals with local providers to deliver via the cell phone network).

This is not a big deal. For the most part, I can buy every English language US or UK edition via amazon.de (there are sometimes price differences between the US and UK editions, as well as slight time differences when new books are released. Language-wise, these editions are mostly identical, though often the punctuation is adjusted. Spelling differences are rare, but sometimes happen – mostly from British authors writing British which are changed for the US release, not the other way around. I rarely notice ). Sometimes there's a delay when rights get reverted and re-issues are released, but that's about it.

 

[Mumbles]

This is weird, there must be something simple I am missing, but I have heard this. I just checked on a title I bought, and yes I could have bought it through the Australian website.
I remember the Knox book was banned from UK purchase, but surely that is a special case.
Ok maybe it is simply a case of the English publisher preferring you buy the more expensive hard copy.
And now I think about it I believe you could get the Kindle Knox in England.

It's sometimes just down to "Publisher A has exclusive rights to sell this book in THislandia". I can see it for some digital download codes as well - as I recall Nintendo's still pretty bad at having different release dates (and prices!) for different regions, in particular.

 

[banquetbear]

What is the difference between paying sales tax on goods purchased in a shop in NZ and the same goods bought on-line and shipped into NZ?

...the difference is "who" is collecting the tax.

I'm a New Zealand citizen, running a small business here in New Zealand, registered to collect GST. I collect money on behalf of the tax department and pay the tax man the money I collected every month.

The problem with applying the "same standard" to companies like Amazon is that in order to comply with our particular laws they need to become collectors of tax on behalf of the New Zealand government. So that adds a whole new level of overhead and complexity to every single transaction with a person in New Zealand.

Now imagine if every country decides to do this (and to be frank I can see this happening one day.). Now imagine we aren't talking about Amazon, but a relatively small internet start-up that relies on monthly subscriptions. I use about seven different subscription companies: all of them based overseas, none of them with local equivalents, to help manage my business. If it becomes easier for them to just stop trading with countries that are doing this rather than trying to maintain compliance with multiple tax codes and standards then I can see a lot of them choosing to do exactly that.

I anticipate that we will see the rise of third-party businesses that will help manage these transactions, but they don't really exist yet, and when it happens the end result for the customer is going to be higher prices.

So I can understand why Amazon is pushing back. I don't have many customers overseas, but if I had to register to be a tax collector for the United States just to ship the odd print over there I would simply stop offering services to the United States. I don't need the headache.

 

[Samson]

Here is a another link that may explain better

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12062708

"From October next year, New Zealand will implement the same GST legislation as Australia, requiring international companies selling to Kiwis online to collect and pay GST to Inland Revenue.

The tax will be on products under $400. Anything above $400 already attracts duties.

Government is consulting the GST change, with public submissions due by June 29.

A spokeswoman for revenue minister Stuart Nash's office said it was not clear if Amazon's decision to block Australian consumers from its global sites was "entirely due to the GST law change in Australia".

"The decision may be partly a marketing strategy related to the launch of Amazon's 'global store' which is now available on the Australian website and which offers a range of new products to Australian customers," she said."

 

[dann]

I live in Germany. As opposed to you, there is an amazon.de.

Amazon does not allow me to buy e-books from amazon.com. I can buy everything else there, even physical books, but not e-books. I have to use amazon.de for e-books.

I have to buy all Kindle books from amazon.com - even German and Spanish Kindle books. I've bought regular books, CDs, DVDs etc. from amazon.ca, amazon.co.uk, amazon.de and amazon.es, but all Kindle books and even Kindle Readers have to go through amazon.com.

I have no idea what the problem is: copyright issuses? taxes? whatever ...

 

[PhantomWolf]

I think you'll find that's called smuggling.

How is it smuggling? I can currently bring in up to $400 worth of goods without any import duties, all legally.

 

[PhantomWolf]

You’re not an “all tax is theft” advocate are you?

You really know me that little?

What is the difference between paying sales tax on goods purchased in a shop in NZ and the same goods bought on-line and shipped into NZ?

Because when they are bought overseas it's an overseas transaction. Sales Tax should apply to purchases inside the country, not to those outside, especially if you're going to put that in the business doing the selling. As banquetbear says, this situation carried to the extreme would result in businesses having to collect and send money to every tax department in the world and would require any business selling items overseas to be up to date with the sales tax of every country they might have to do business with. It's unsustainable and silly.

The whole issue comes from shopkeepers that want to change over the top amounts for things, getting annoyed that people can go elsewhere to buy things rather than being captive to their price gouging.

 

[BobTheCoward]

You’re not an “all tax is theft” advocate are you?

I am.

 

[deadrose]

The digital scrapbooking shop where I've worked the past 10 years manages to do this with EU addresses just fine so I'm pretty sure the Amazombies can write the necessary code.

It might have been a hassle in the days of double-entry ledgers, but we're long past that, and why should we give Amazon the business boost of being able to sell without charging taxes?

 

[3point14]

The digital scrapbooking shop where I've worked the past 10 years manages to do this with EU addresses just fine so I'm pretty sure the Amazombies can write the necessary code.

It might have been a hassle in the days of double-entry ledgers, but we're long past that, and why should we give Amazon the business boost of being able to sell without charging taxes?

Because the company itself thinks it's able to bully a whole nation by dint of massive financial power and thereby retain just one of its many advantages over local traders.

At a guess.

 

[Wudang]

Depends on the publisher, there have been a few titles I've tried to get that were not available in the UK and then you are stuffed as you can only use your local Kindle store.

Not completely stuffed as you can download to your PC, run Calibre and convert it as required and then sideload to your kindle. Bit of a faff though.

 

[deadrose]

Because the company itself thinks it's able to bully a whole nation by dint of massive financial power and thereby retain just one of its many advantages over local traders.

At a guess.

You're telling me, I live in Seattle. Or lived. We'll be moving out of the city shortly as we can no longer afford to live here.

When the city recently discussed an employee head tax (only applicable to businesses that do several million dollars a year in business), Amazon immediately halted construction on its latest building in threat. Now it's funding a campaign to fight the tax, which is specifically earmarked for the huge number of people that have gone homeless due to skyrocketing real estate, which is due to the thousands of people moving to Seattle to work at Amazon (and other IT firms). Seattle now has the 3rd largest homeless population in the country, even though we're at #18 for population in general. That's Amazon for you.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

I need someone to explain the " social ramifications " to me...

 

[casebro]

The contract my niece the author had with her first publisher had two parts. USA, and Foreign. So may be the Kindle thing is contractual rather than taxeational.?

 

[lionking]

I need someone to explain the " social ramifications " to me...

I imagine it’s the indignity of paying sales tax when people were getting away without paying it.

In my view the real “social ramification” is the fact that rightful tax has not been paid for years, limiting services these taxes pay for.

 

[Samson]

I need someone to explain the " social ramifications " to me...

Access to all available books ever written will result in the most advanced social circumstance. And it means the thread is started in the correct section.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Ok here is a link

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/in...could-leave-government-searching-for-a-plan-b

Don't know about New Zealand but that link says:

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.

The move by Amazon came largely out-of-the-blue, and it is only possible to guess at its motivation and end game.

It may be that Amazon has simply decided it doesn't have the time, inclination or perhaps the capacity to implement the necessary systems changes to collect GST.

It may have made a late call that it is better off stomaching some loss of Australian sales, compensating for that by driving more custom to its local Australian store.

Or it may have made a more calculated decision to punish Australia for its new tax policy to try to dissuade other governments around the world from being tempted to follow its lead.

*Conflict of interest notice, my son started his new 6 figure job at Amazon.