Goods and Services Tax (LAWS70031)

This subject will examine Australia’s Goods and Services Tax (GST). The subject identifies the core legislative features in Australia’s GST contained in the A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Act 1999.

Principal topics include:

• introduction to the GST: the objectives of a tax on household consumption expenditure and the design features and legislative scheme of Australia’s GST;
• GST’s ‘basic rules’ and the legislative building blocks contained in the GST law: the taxable person, consumption expenditure, tax value, registration, jurisdictional scope, supplies to and from offshore, exemptions, the destination principle (exports and imports) and input tax relief; and
• a legislative overview of the Australian GST treatment of the “difficult to tax” issues: real property and financial services.

The subject also includes:

• analysis of rulings and cases that are relevant to the operation of, and compliance with, Australia’s GST in practice; and
• reference to the value-added tax systems in other jurisdictions such as the European Union, United Kingdom, New Zealand and Singapore.