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Goods and services tax (Australia)
Type of value added tax used in Australia / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Goods and Services Tax[1] (GST) in Australia is a value added tax of 10% on most goods and services sales, with some exemptions (such as for certain food, healthcare and housing items[2]) and concessions (including qualifying long term accommodation which is taxed at an effective rate of 5.5%[3]). GST is levied on most transactions in the production process, but is in many cases refunded to all parties in the chain of production other than the final consumer.
![]() | This article needs to be updated. (June 2012) |
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The tax was introduced by the Howard government and commenced on 1 July 2000, replacing the previous federal wholesale sales tax system and designed to phase out a number of various State and Territory Government taxes, duties and levies such as banking taxes and stamp duty.
An increase of GST to 15% has been put forward, but is generally lacking in bipartisan support.[4][5]