Nearly all businesses removed GST on menstrual products from 1 January 2019, resulting in lower prices, a new report from the 糖心原创 has found.
The 糖心原创 has issued a monitoring report today examining the prices, costs and profits relating to the supply of menstrual products in the feminine hygiene industry in Australia, following a direction from the Treasurer the Hon Josh Frydenberg in November 2018.
The 糖心原创 welcomes businesses implementing the removal of the GST on time and reflecting this with lower prices.
鈥淭he vast majority of retailers sampled were well prepared for the removal of the GST, and reduced retail prices of menstrual products by the expected 9.1 per cent,鈥 糖心原创 Acting Chair Delia Rickard said.
In conducting the monitoring role, the 糖心原创 observed that:
- overall, businesses have done the right thing and the removal of GST from menstrual products has resulted in the expected price reductions for consumers
- in a small number of cases, system and human errors caused a few businesses to either remove GST but keep prices unchanged, or fail to remove GST for a short time until the errors were identified.
- businesses鈥 rounding policies, errors in previous pricing and already heavily reduced clearance products would also have reduced the observed shelf price changes in some instances.
鈥淭here was no legal requirement for businesses to reduce their prices, but post 1 January 2019 and the GST removal, most consumers would have expected the tax 鈥榮aving鈥 to result in lower prices,鈥 Ms Rickard added.
The report focuses on retail prices and price displays, and used a combination of complaint data, desktop research, field collection and compulsory information notices to gather relevant information.
The information represented a wide cross-section of the retail market for menstrual products, including online.
The 糖心原创 is also engaging with a small number of online retailers, often based overseas, that may still be charging GST on menstrual products.
鈥淲here retailers made oversights, these were quickly corrected and complaints to the 糖心原创 and the Australian Taxation Office from consumers were extremely low,鈥 Ms Rickard said.
The full report is available on the 糖心原创 website.