So yet another terrible atrocity has happened to me. The post office charged me 15 cents.
Now before you go running and screaming that 15 cents is not an atrocity, shush. You're probably right, but that would utterly destroy the point of this post. Stick with me.
It costs $1.65 to mail a card to America. At Christmas, they sell 55-cent stamps, which are for domestic Christmas cards. Last year, I had a few extra Christmas stamps and decided, voila, to use them as postage for other cards going to America. Three of them. 55 plus 55 plus 55. $1.65. Right?
Wrong. 55 plus 55 plus 55 plus 15. The 55-centers are patriotic. They only travel in Australia. If you send them out of the country, there is a 15-cent penalty. Just for using the "wrong" stamps. Despite the value being the same.
Atrocity? Atrocity.
Sunday, February 24, 2013
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3 comments:
It's because of the GST. The 55c domestic stamp is really only 50c postage + 5c GST. So you've only paid Australia Post $1.50 for the three stamps (15c having gone to the fed gov't as tax). In order to pay postage of $1.65 for international post, which doesn't incur GST because it's going out of the country, you need to top-up with the 15c.
In some ways, you would have been better off keeping the 55c stamps to use with 5c stamps for regular domestic post some other time and paying for the whole $1.65 in one lump this time.
Score one for America, where postage isn't taxed, as the Post Office is run by the government anyway, and where you no longer need to purchase a different kind of stamp for overseas versus homeland delivery. And, the current crowning glory: forever stamps. Now, whenever a stamp is purchased, it can be used to send a letter domestically at any time in the future, without added expense even if the price of postage goes up (which it undoubtedly does).
I like the idea of a forever stamp.
Australia Post is quasi-gov't. It's classified as a Government Business Enterprise meaning that it's a business, which needs to make a profit, and the owners happen to be the gov't. It's not run by the gov't in the way that say, defence or health or the animal management centre is.
Some of the outlets are actually franchises. This is way incidental stock (not the postage bags or postage prices) varies so much from store to store.
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