Refunds of excess GST
How to apply for the Commissioner’s discretion to allow a refund of excess GST.
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Refunds of excess GST
You can’t receive a refund of excess GST if you:
- have passed on excess GST to your customers (incorrectly including GST in the sale price paid by your customers)
- have not reimbursed the excess GST to your customers.
You can still apply for the Commissioner’s discretion to allow a refund of your excess GST, even if the listed dot points above apply to you.
For more information about the meaning of the terms ‘passed on’ and ‘reimbursed’, and how the Administrative Appeals Tribunal decided a particular case on exercising the Commissioner’s discretion, see:
- Goods and Services Tax Ruling GSTR 2015/1 Goods and services tax: the meaning of the terms ‘passed on’ and ‘reimburse’ for the purposes of Division 142 of the A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Act 1999
- M3K Services Pty Ltd and Commissioner of Taxation
Approved form requirements
Your application for the Commissioner’s discretion to allow a refund of your excess GST must be completed in the approved form.
To be an approved form, your application must include your:
- Australian business number (ABN)
- name or business name
- postal address
- phone number
- grounds for why we should approve your application for exercise of the discretion to refund excess GST
- copies of any documents supporting the application
- the agent’s full name and registered agent number – if the document is lodged by a registered tax or BAS agent, a signed and dated declaration must be present to show that the
- document has been prepared in accordance with the information supplied by the entity
- agent has received a declaration from the entity stating that the information provided to the agent is true and correct
- agent is authorised by the entity to give us the document to
- signed and dated declaration as follows
- I declare that all the information I have given in this letter, including any attachments, is true and correct
- your signature
- the date.
Additional information required
To decide whether the discretion should be exercised, we need to establish whether:
- there is an amount of excess GST
- the excess GST has been passed on.
Therefore, as part of the application, you will also need to address the following factors:
- how the excess GST arose
- your pricing policy and practice
- the documentary evidence surrounding the transaction
- any other relevant circumstances.
You should also include:
- information to help us determine the correct GST treatment of the transaction
- any other relevant supporting documentation such as tax invoices, sale contracts, internal pricing policy documents and relevant correspondence between parties.
How to apply
To apply, either:
- contact us using Online services for business or Online services for agents and select
- Communication tab and then either Secure mail or Practice mail
- then select New
- in the Topic field, select View more topics from the dropdown list
- in the Other topics list, select GST
- select the subject Other Sales, Purchases or Tax invoice enquiry from the dropdown list
- attach your application, complete the declaration, and click submit.
Your registered agent can also apply on your behalf using Online services for agents.
You can contact us by:
- fax on 1300 139 031
- by post to
GST Technical Advice
PO Box 3524
ALBURY NSW 2640
Source: gov.au
