Contents
- What are taxable supplies?
- Paying GST on taxable supplies
- Partly taxable supplies
- Capital assets
- Sales for payment
- Sales while operating your business
- Sales connected with Australia
What are taxable supplies?
If you are registered for GST or required to be, the goods and services you sell in Australia are taxable, unless they are GST free or input taxed. The GST Act details what goods and services are taxable.
To be a taxable supply, a sale must be:
- for payment of some kind
- made in the course of operating your business
- connected with Australia
Paying GST on taxable supplies
You pay GST on the taxable supplies you make when you lodge your activity statement. For these taxable supplies, you:
- include GST in the price
- issue a tax invoice to the buyer
- pay the GST you’ve collected when you lodge your activity statement.
You can claim credits for the GST included in the price of purchases you needed to make your taxable supplies.
Partly taxable supplies
If your sale can be separated into identifiable parts and any of those parts are GST free or input-taxed, the sale is partly taxable. You only need to pay GST on the taxable part of the sale.
For more information, see:
- GST free sales
- Input-taxed sales
- GST Ruling GSTR 2001/8 Goods and services tax: Apportioning the consideration for a supply that includes taxable and non-taxable parts.
Capital assets
Sales of business assets such as office equipment and motor vehicles are usually taxable supplies. You will need to include GST when you trade in or dispose of business assets by transferring ownership.
For more information, see: GST and the disposal of capital assets.
Sales for payment
For a sale to be taxable, it must be made for payment which can be monetary or another form of payment, such as:
- goods or services provided instead of money, such as barter transactions
- payment in the form of refraining from doing something.
For more information, see:
- Bartering and trade exchanges
- Grants and sponsorship
- GST Ruling GST 2001/6 Goods and services tax: Non-monetary consideration.
Sales in the course of operating your business
For a sale to be taxable, you must provide the goods or services as part of conducting your business. This includes all sales of business assets, including items such as motor vehicles and office plant and equipment. It also includes things done in the course of setting up or winding down your business.
Sales connected with Australia
GST applies to sales connected with Australia, whether they are:
- goods
- property
- things other than goods or property.
Goods
A sale of goods is connected with Australia if the goods are either:
- delivered or made available in Australia to the purchaser
- removed from Australia
- brought to Australia – provided the seller either imports the goods or installs or assembles the goods in Australia.
- from 1 July 2018, supplies of low value imported goods to a consumer in Australia.
Exports of goods and services from Australia are generally GST free, even though the sale is connected with Australia.
For more information, see:
- Exports of goods
- GST on low value imported goods
- GSTR 2018/2 Goods and services tax: supplies of goods connected with the indirect tax zone (Australia)
Property
A sale of property is connected with Australia if the property is in Australia.
For GST purposes, property includes:
- land
- land and buildings
- interest in land
- rights over land
- a licence to occupy land.
For more information, see GSTR 2018/1 Goods and services tax: supplies of real property connected with the indirect tax zone (Australia).
Things other than goods or property
A sale of something other than goods or property is connected with Australia if either the:
- thing is done in Australia
- seller makes the sale through a business they carry on in Australia
- sale is of a right or option to purchase something that would be connected with Australia.
- purchaser of the sale is an Australian consumer.
For more information, see:
- GSTR 2019/1 Goods and services tax: supply of anything other than goods or real property connected with the indirect tax zone (Australia).
- GST on imported services and digital products
- GSTR 2017/1 Goods and services tax: making cross-border supplies to Australian customers
This article is general information only and does not provide advice to address your personal circumstances. To make an informed decision you should contact an appropriately qualified professional.