Customs brokers and importers currently face delays in statutory reporting and import deliveries as a result of the inconsistent GST treatment of port service charges (PSCs) by freight forwarders.
Freight & Trade Alliance (FTA), with the support of the GST experts at Crowe Horwath, have engaged with members in preparing a draft notice to provide practical guidance to facilitate early completion of import declarations. To ensure its accuracy, the draft notice was presented to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO). We are pleased to advise that FTA received the following positive feedback from the ATO Deputy Commissioner, Tim Dyce:
"We can advise that the text of the draft notice is correct in regard to the interpretation of the relevant provisions of A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Act 1999 (GST Act). We also consider that the draft notice correctly interprets the relevant ATO view products/rulings mentioned.
We acknowledge that care was taken to ensure that this notice would not be interpreted as being a directive issued by the ATO. We note that in paragraph 8 you have correctly stated: "The ATO does not prescribe how freight forwarders should manage this matter."
Thank you for providing us the opportunity to review this notice and good luck with your endeavours to streamline the business practices in this industry."
To ensure its practical application, FTA followed up with "member only" webinar on Thursday 25 May 2017 to present the draft content (register to access recording HERE / copy of presentation available HERE) and used your feedback to fine tune the content with a final notice again presented to the ATO. On Friday 26 May 2017, the ATO reaffirmed the accuracy of the notice.
To view the final notice, please click HERE.
Paul Zalai – FTA / APSA