One of the bonuses when going overseas is the opportunity to purchase duty free. What I've noticed is people still think buying items like cameras and watches offer great savings like they did years ago.
Years ago duty was put into place to protect the local industry (that may still be the case in some areas) but for most of the things I'm interested in, the duty was reduced and I think completely removed. Duty was an additional tax to sales tax. When you bought duty free, not only did you not pay the duty, but you also didn't pay the sales tax.
What changed is we went from a wholesale tax system to GST. In effect tax on products was reduced in many cases and services became taxed.
In the past there may have been significant duty and wholesale tax on products. I recall figures such as 30% wholesale tax applied to some items.
Now however, most of that has changed. For items like cameras and electronic goods, duty free means a saving of GST. GST is one eleventh of the price which is roughly 9%.
The problem is duty free stores typically don't discount, so you pay full price less the GST. If you buy something on sale discounted by 10%, then you are getting a better price than buying duty free.
The other advantage of buying on sale is you get the item and can get used to it before leaving on an overseas holiday.
Items like alcohol and cigarettes, which have very large taxes applied to them, are the real bargains when it comes to duty free. I'm not a smoker, but those who do, really benefit when it comes to the savings on cigarettes. Even better is you can buy a range of duty free items at the airport when you return to Australia. That saves a lot of effort carrying duty free items around when overseas.
For me, gone are the days of going into the city buying duty free before a holiday overseas. I recall purchasing a video recorder and lugging it all around Asia. It makes me laugh to think of how inconvenient and heavy it was and now I could do just as well by buying during one when on special.
For those who love haggling, you'll probably find you can negotiate a discount in many cases which is as good as duty free. I'm not a haggler so that doesn't help me. I'm a catalogue buyer and since many catalogues are now on the internet, I can find my pre-trip specials quite easily from the comfort of home.
Even checking out duty free items is easy because the duty free store at Tullamarine airport is now online. From what I've previously compared, they were the same prices in the city as the airport, at least for the items I was interested in. I'm in Melbourne and that may differ for other locations. In general I've find airport prices much dearer for most things.
The following sites may be of interest to those travelling overseas.
Check this booklet from Customers for your duty free allowance.
www.customs.gov.au/webdata/resources/files/GuideForTravellers.pdf
Check this site for duty free prices at Tullamarine airport
http://www.firstdutyfree.com.au/
I seem to recall a place called Downtown duty free and so I searched for that name on the internet. I checked the telephone number and it is the same as First Tax & Duty Free. It appears they are the same.
Have a great holiday.
Kelvin Eldridge
Tags: duty free, downtown duty free, dutyfree, duty free allowance, duty free stores, duty free online
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