Buying from foreign ecommerce sites may get costlier

MUMBAI: The government may consider introducing a prepaid tax and customs model for cross-border transactions, a move that could make buying products from foreign ecommerce platforms costlier.

Chinese and other foreign ecommerce platforms, while shipping products to Indian customers, would have to pay the tax and customs duty through a government IT system and can only then have the goods delivered.

The prepaid customs and IGST (integrated goods and services tax) model would mean that buying products from foreign websites could become costlier by around 50%. The government has sought recommendations from stakeholders.