Treasury has released an Exposure Draft of new laws requiring offshore companies selling hotel bookings in Australia to pay the same GST as Australian companies.
The Exposure Draft is now open for public consultation.
Treasurer, Scott Morrison said the legislation removed the exemption that allowed offshore sellers not to count sales of hotel bookings in Australia towards their $75,000 GST turnover threshold.
“The measure will apply to sales made on or after 1 July 2019 and is estimated to increase GST payments to the States and Territories by $15 million over the forward estimates,” Mr Morrison said.
He said this would level the playing field for local businesses and followed the Government’s decision to extend the GST to digital products and other services from 1 July 2017 and to low-value imported goods from 1 July 2018.
“The size of the GST pool has grown substantially from $24.4 billion when the GST was introduced two decades ago, to $67.3 billion this year, accounting for around 25 per cent of State and Territory revenue,” Mr Morrison said.
“Our measures to grow the GST base, including enforcing the payment of GST on property transactions and applying the GST to digital products and services, and low-value goods imported to Australia, are forecast to increase GST receipts by more than $2 billion in 2018–19, and more than $6.5 billion over the four years to 2021–22.”
The Treasurer said he would seek the unanimous agreement of the States and Territories before the legislation was enacted.
Submissions close on 9 August and the two-page exposure draft can be accessed at this PS News link with 10 pages of explanatory material accessible at this link.
