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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 6 Hansard (22 June) . . Page.. 1738 ..

Each of these issues is considered below.

Which Government user charges are subject to GST?

The GST does not apply to state and territory taxes, or fines but does apply to some fees and charges. The charges exempt from the GST tax are to be defined and subject to approval by the Commonwealth Treasurer.

The ACT has forwarded to the Commonwealth an initial list of taxes, fees, fines and charges together with other states and territories. The Commonwealth has sought additional information for presentation to an intergovernmental sub-committee, which will review all jurisdiction returns in order to achieve consistency across governments.

At what administrative level will the ACT lodge returns?

Presently, under the Bills before Federal Parliament the 'entity grouping' and 'branch' provisions will permit the ACT to lodge either one GST return for the whole of general government or separate returns for each branch or clearly distinguishable business units where a separate accounting system exists.

The impact of the transitional provisions of the legislation?

Any contracts entered into after 2 December 1998 that cover service provision after 1 July 2000 are subject to the transitional provisions of the legislation. The general rule under the legislation is that any service provided after 1 July 2000 will be subject to GST and any part of the service provided before 1 July 2000 will not.

The Government Solicitor's Office has been requested to examine the possibility of issuing a

standard variation clause to be inserted into contracts straddling the time period.

Introduction of the Australian Business Number (ABN)

As part of the tax reform process, the Commonwealth Government will establish a register to allocate a unique number to each business registered as an entity for GST. The number will be used as an identifier for all dealings with Commonwealth agencies. This will remove the duplication of registers and numbers within the present tax system, enabling the lodgement of a single return covering several payment types, such as group tax and GST.

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