Sydney (dpa) – Australians were given the choice Friday to buy electrical goods at the bricks-and-mortar shops of one of the nation's biggest retailers or go online and purchase the same items from Harvey Norman's Irish subsidiary. It was the first time that a High Street giant has offered customers the option of tax-free sales from its own overseas subsidiary. The Irish subsidiary would ship orders from Ireland, in that way operating like a foreign website, circumventing the requirement to charge sales tax on orders and also taking advantage of the strong Australian dollar. The computer game Super Mario Galaxy 2, for example, costs 52 Australian dollars (52 US dollars) on the Harvey Norman overseas site against 85 Australian dollars locally. Harvey Norman boss Gerry Harvey said the strength of the local currency, up 15 per cent against the US dollar this year, has supercharged the online sector and helped send sales to foreign websites. Also hurting High Street retailers is the advantage conferred on the overseas online sector by the 1,000-Australian-dollar (1,000-US-dollar) tax-free threshold for imported goods. In Britain, for example, it is a fairer contest with any purchase over 29 Australian dollars subject to tax. “We're not doing this with a great deal of joy,” Harvey told The Australian newspaper. “We've been able to do this [set up a website abroad] for a long time, and we've held off and held off, but you get to a stage when you can't hold off any more.” dpa BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/O3QWx Tags: Australia, Economy, High Street, Tax-free Section: Business, Oceana
