GST & Indirect Taxes

Businesses can incur significant compliance costs attempting to work out which goods and services are taxable, GST-free or input taxed. There are also the administrative costs associated with paying, collecting, claiming credits and remitting GST on sales and purchases. These can be substantial, particularly if you run a small business.

How BDO can help

Our GST experts can help you navigate this complex and wide-ranging area, helping you achieve compliance, minimise the impact of GST, and avoid pitfalls for your business. We can help you with:

GST consulting

We provide advice for Australian business operations, sales, purchases and other transactions to ensure you meet your GST obligations and maximise your cashflow, including calculating and paying goods and services tax.

Indirect tax compliance services

We help with all indirect tax compliance obligations to ensure activity statements are lodged on time. Additonal services include:

• Business and commercial transactions - advice on the tax implications of major transactions such as initial public offerings, mergers and acquisitions, and asset sales, and suggest an alternative tax effective approach to avoid costly surprises.
• Overseas online transactions - with the challenges of GST and the digital economy, our experts are up to date with proposed government changes on all overseas online transactions, and have experience advising and planning in this area.  
• Financial acquisitions threshold - testing to maximise input tax credit claims.
• Supply chain management - advice on the identification and resolution of offshore ‘sticky’ taxes, including review of terms of trade, permanent establishment rules and presence, and identification of favourable source countries for goods and cash flow management.
• Audit defence - help to manage Australian Tax Office (ATO) audits, eliminate ATO mistakes, defend clients' positions and minimise penalties for businesses in situations where the ATO has issued harsh penalties and assessments, even jail terms.
• Health checks - review systems, documents and processes, eliminate errors and minimise the risk of penalties, from the perspective of an ATO auditor.
• Wine Equalisation Tax - advice on product classification and producer rebates including structuring, associate provisions and grouping.
• Carbon farming - information for individuals and organisations for the application of taxation laws for carbon credits and other carbon farming practices.
• State taxes – help to work out tax implications for for state taxes, and plan for relevant transactions.