{"id":"C2004A00461","name":"A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax Imposition—Excise) Act 1999","slug":"a-new-tax-system-goods-and-services-tax-imposition-excise-act-1999","collection":"act","jurisdiction":"commonwealth","status":"in_force","isInForce":true,"actNumber":"74 of 1999","makingDate":null,"administeringDepartment":null,"currentVersion":{"id":38509,"registerId":"commonwealth-C2004A00461-1775056118064","compilationNumber":null,"startDate":"2026-04-01","status":"InForce","reasons":null,"registeredAt":null},"sections":[{"sectionNumber":"1","sectionType":"section","heading":"Short title [see Note 1]","content":"#### 1 Short title \\[see Note 1\\]\n\n  This Act may be cited as the A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax Imposition—Excise) Act 1999.","sortOrder":0},{"sectionNumber":"2","sectionType":"section","heading":"Commencement","content":"#### 2 Commencement\n\n  This Act commences on 1 July 2000.","sortOrder":1},{"sectionNumber":"3","sectionType":"section","heading":"Imposition","content":"#### 3 Imposition\n\n  (1) The tax that is payable under the GST law (within the meaning of the A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Act 1999) is imposed by this section under the name of goods and services tax (GST).\n  (2) This section imposes GST only so far as that tax:\n    (a) is a duty of excise within the meaning of section 55 of the Constitution; and\n    (b) is not imposed by the A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax Imposition (Recipients)—Excise) Act 2005.","sortOrder":2},{"sectionNumber":"4","sectionType":"section","heading":"Rate","content":"#### 4 Rate\n\n  The rate of goods and services tax payable under the A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Act 1999 is 10%.","sortOrder":3},{"sectionNumber":"5","sectionType":"section","heading":"Act does not impose a tax on property of a State","content":"#### 5 Act does not impose a tax on property of a State\n\n  (1) This Act does not impose a tax on property of any kind belonging to a State.\n  (2) Property of any kind belonging to a State has the same meaning as in section 114 of the Constitution.","sortOrder":4}],"analysis":{"summary":{"complexity_score":3,"scope_assessment":{"changed":false,"description":"The Act does exactly what its title and structure suggest — it formally imposes GST as an excise duty at 10% and protects State property, consistent with its original constitutional and administrative purpose. No scope creep or departure from original intent is evident."},"complexity_factors":["Requires understanding of Australian constitutional law, specifically the distinction between excise duties (section 55) and other taxes","The Act's purpose is only fully understood when read alongside multiple companion Acts (the main GST Act, the Recipients—Excise Act 2005, and other imposition Acts)","Constitutional cross-references (sections 55 and 114 of the Constitution) require external knowledge to interpret","The narrow, technical drafting style — doing very little on its face — can be confusing without broader legislative context"],"plain_english_summary":"## What This Law Does\n\nThis is one of several Acts that together make up the legal foundation for **Australia's Goods and Services Tax (GST)** — the 10% tax added to most goods and services you buy.\n\n## Why So Many Acts?\n\nThe Australian Constitution requires that certain types of taxes be imposed by specific kinds of laws. **Excise duties** (taxes on goods produced or manufactured in Australia) must be imposed by a separate Act of Parliament under **section 55 of the Constitution**. This Act exists purely to satisfy that constitutional requirement — it formally imposes GST on transactions that legally qualify as an excise duty.\n\n## What It Actually Does\n\n- **Imposes GST** on transactions that fall within the constitutional category of 'excise duties'\n- **Sets the GST rate at 10%** (this is the same 10% you see on every tax receipt)\n- **Protects State government property** from being taxed under this Act, as required by section 114 of the Constitution (which prohibits the Commonwealth from taxing State property)\n- **Avoids double-taxation** by excluding transactions already covered by a separate companion Act (the Recipients—Excise Act 2005)\n\n## Who Does This Affect?\n\nPractically every Australian who buys goods or services is affected by GST — but this specific Act operates invisibly in the background. You won't interact with it directly. It's constitutional plumbing that ensures the GST system is legally valid.\n\n## The Bottom Line\n\nThis Act doesn't create new obligations beyond what the main GST Act already requires. It exists to make the GST system **constitutionally bulletproof** by ensuring the tax is properly imposed across all legal categories."},"issue_detection":{"absurdities":[{"type":"circular_definition","section":"3(1)","severity":"low","reasoning":"Section 3(1) states that 'the tax that is payable under the GST law... is imposed by this section.' However, the tax is payable under the GST law precisely because it is imposed by legislative instruments such as this Act. The payability presupposes imposition, while the imposition references payability — a classic circular dependency. In practice courts resolve this through the combined reading of the GST Act and imposition acts, but as a matter of pure logic the drafting is circular.","confidence":0.62,"description":"Circular imposition of tax: this section imposes tax that is 'payable under the GST law', but the tax only becomes payable because it is imposed — the imposition and the liability are mutually dependent, creating a logical loop."},{"type":"retroactive_impossibility","section":"3(2)(b)","severity":"medium","reasoning":"This Act commenced on 1 July 2000 per section 2. The carve-out in s3(2)(b) references the GST Imposition (Recipients)—Excise Act 2005, which was enacted six years later. At commencement, the exclusion referenced a statute that did not yet exist, meaning the scope of this Act's imposition was legally indeterminate with respect to that carve-out for approximately five years. While this was rectified when the 2005 Act was passed, the drafting creates a period of logical impossibility: the Act excluded something that could not yet be excluded because it did not exist. This is a known legislative drafting technique (anticipatory exclusion) but it remains logically problematic.","confidence":0.78,"description":"Section 3(2)(b) carves out tax imposed by the A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax Imposition (Recipients)—Excise) Act 2005, an Act that did not exist when this Act was enacted in 1999, creating a forward reference to a non-existent instrument at the time of commencement."},{"type":"other","section":"4","severity":"medium","reasoning":"The constitutional architecture of GST requires separate imposition acts for excise, customs, and general taxation heads of power (ss 55, 90 of the Constitution). Section 4 of this Act states the rate is 10% under the GST Act broadly, without limiting that rate declaration to the excise-characterised portion. If taken literally, this Act (an excise imposition act) is purporting to fix the rate for the entire GST regime, which exceeds its constitutional and legislative scope. Parallel rate provisions exist in the companion imposition acts, creating redundancy and potential inconsistency if the rates were ever to differ.","confidence":0.71,"description":"Section 4 purports to set the rate of GST payable under the GST Act, but this Act is an imposition act concerned only with the constitutional head of power (excise). Setting the substantive rate in an imposition act rather than the principal GST Act creates an anomaly where the rate arguably applies only to the excise-characterised portion of GST, not to the full GST liability."}],"contradictions":[{"severity":"low","section_a":"3(2)(a)","section_b":"5(1)","confidence":0.45,"description":"Section 3(2)(a) limits imposition to transactions constituting a 'duty of excise' under s55 of the Constitution, while section 5(1) exempts State property from the tax. These provisions may conflict in cases where a State is engaged in commercial activity that would otherwise attract excise characterisation, as the constitutional immunity in s114 and the excise characterisation in s55 operate on different axes and the interaction is not resolved by the Act."},{"severity":"medium","section_a":"2","section_b":"3(2)(b)","confidence":0.75,"description":"Section 2 fixes commencement at 1 July 2000, but section 3(2)(b) excludes tax imposed by an Act of 2005. At commencement the exclusion was a nullity (no such Act existed), meaning section 3(2)(b) was inoperative for approximately five years, contradicting the Act's apparent intention to have a complete and coherent imposition regime from 1 July 2000."}]},"kimi_summary":{"content_quality":"ok","complexity_score":2,"scope_assessment":{"changed":false,"description":"This Act has remained tightly focused on its original purpose since 1999: providing a constitutional basis for imposing GST as an excise duty. The only significant amendment was the 2005 addition of section 3(2)(b), which carved out certain GST collections to avoid double-imposition with a companion Act. This was a technical refinement, not scope creep."},"complexity_factors":["Extremely short: only 5 sections total","Minimal defined terms: only references external definitions (\"GST law\", \"duty of excise\", \"property of a State\")","No nested exceptions or conditional logic beyond simple carve-outs in section 3(2)","Single cross-reference to the Constitution (section 55 and 114) and two other Acts","Straightforward rate provision with no tiers, thresholds, or calculations"],"plain_english_summary":"**What this law does:**\n\nThis is one of several technical laws that actually creates (\"imposes\") Australia's 10% Goods and Services Tax (GST). While the main GST Act sets out all the rules for how GST works, this specific Act is the legal instrument that formally creates the tax itself—but only for a specific constitutional category.\n\n**Who it affects:**\n\nThis Act primarily affects constitutional lawyers and the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), not everyday taxpayers directly. It ensures GST can be legally collected on certain transactions that fall under a specific constitutional power (the \"excise\" power in section 55 of the Constitution). For ordinary businesses and consumers, the practical effect is invisible—they just pay the 10% GST as usual.\n\n**Why it matters:**\n\nAustralia's Constitution requires different types of taxes to be imposed using different constitutional powers. This Act is a \"constitutional safety net\" that ensures GST is validly imposed even if it technically qualifies as an \"excise duty\" (a tax on goods, especially manufactured or produced goods). Without this Act, there would be a risk that some GST collections could be challenged in court as unconstitutional.\n\n**Key points:**\n- **Sets the GST rate at 10%** (matching the main GST Act)\n- **Only applies to GST that counts as an \"excise duty\"** under the Constitution\n- **Doesn't apply if another specific Act already covers that GST** (the 2005 Recipients Act)\n- **Protects state property** from being taxed under this particular constitutional power"}},"importantCases":[],"_links":{"self":"/api/acts/a-new-tax-system-goods-and-services-tax-imposition-excise-act-1999","history":"/api/acts/a-new-tax-system-goods-and-services-tax-imposition-excise-act-1999/history","analysis":"/api/acts/a-new-tax-system-goods-and-services-tax-imposition-excise-act-1999/analysis","conflicts":"/api/acts/a-new-tax-system-goods-and-services-tax-imposition-excise-act-1999/conflicts","importantCases":"/api/acts/a-new-tax-system-goods-and-services-tax-imposition-excise-act-1999/important-cases","documents":"/api/acts/a-new-tax-system-goods-and-services-tax-imposition-excise-act-1999/documents"}}