{"id":"C1973A00017","name":"Sales Tax (Exemptions and Classifications) Act 1973","slug":"sales-tax-exemptions-and-classifications-act-1973","collection":"act","jurisdiction":"commonwealth","status":"repealed","isInForce":false,"actNumber":"17 of 1973","makingDate":null,"administeringDepartment":null,"currentVersion":{"id":2531,"registerId":"commonwealth-C1973A00017-current","compilationNumber":null,"startDate":"2026-03-29","status":"Repealed","reasons":null,"registeredAt":null},"sections":[{"sectionNumber":"1","sectionType":"section","heading":"Sales Tax (Exemptions and Classifications) Act 1973","content":"Sales Tax (Exemptions and Classifications) Act 1973\n\nNo. 17 of 1973\n\nAN ACT\n\nRelating to the Exemption from Sales Tax of Contraceptives, and of Parts and Accessories for the Metric Conversion of Equipment.\n\n\\[Assented to 11 April 1973\\]\n\nBE IT ENACTED by the Queen, the Senate and the House of Representatives of Australia, as follows:—\n\nShort title and citation.\n\n1. (1) This Act may be cited as the Sales Tax (Exemptions and Classifications) Act 1973.\n\n(2) The Sales Tax (Exemptions and Classifications) Act 1935–1972 is in this Act referred to as the Principal Act.\n\n(3) The Principal Act, as amended by this Act, may be cited as the Sales Tax (Exemptions and Classifications) Act 1935–1973.\n\nCommencement.\n\n2. (1) Subject to this section, this Act shall come into operation on the day on which it receives the Royal Assent.\n\n(2) The amendment made by paragraph 3 b), in so far as it adds item 149 to the First Schedule to the Principal Act, shall be deemed to have had effect on and from 1st July, 1971.\n\n  \n\n(3) The amendments made by paragraph 3(a), by paragraph 3(b), in so far as it adds item 150 to the First Schedule to the Principal Act, and by section 4, shall be deemed to have had effect on and from 8th December, 1972.\n\nFirst Schedule.\n\n3. The First Schedule to the Principal Act is amended—\n\n(a) by omitting from sub-item (16) of item 42 the words “, not being goods covered by item 62 in the Second Schedule to this Act”; and\n\n(b) by adding at the end thereof the following items:—\n\n| “149. Goods that—                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           |               |\n| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------- |\n| (a) are parts or accessories for equipment used or to be used exclusively, or primarily and principally, for business or industrial purposes; and                                                                                                                                           |               |\n| (b) are to be used for the purpose of converting or adapting that equipment for use in connexion with the metric system, that is to say, the metric system of measurement as denned by section 3 of the Metric Conversion Act 1970,not being recording charts, chart paper or similar goods | Nos. 1 to 9   |\n| “150. Contraceptives................................                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        | Nos. 1 to 9”. |\n\nSecond Schedule.\n\n4. The Second Schedule to the Principal Act is amended by omitting item 62.","sortOrder":0}],"analysis":{"summary":{"complexity_score":2,"scope_assessment":{"changed":false,"description":"This Act does not change the scope of the principal legislation in any meaningful way. It simply adds two new exemption items and removes one superseded item, consistent with the established purpose of the Sales Tax (Exemptions and Classifications) Act — which has always been to define what is and is not subject to sales tax. The amendments are narrowly targeted and align directly with the Act's stated purpose in its long title."},"complexity_factors":["Very short Act with only 4 operative sections","Minimal defined terms — only one definition referenced (metric system, imported from the Metric Conversion Act 1970)","Two retrospective commencement dates add a small layer of temporal complexity","Relies heavily on the structure of the Principal Act (Sales Tax (Exemptions and Classifications) Act 1935–1972), requiring cross-referencing to understand full effect","One conditional exclusion within Item 149 (recording charts, chart paper or similar goods)","No nested exceptions or complex conditional logic"],"plain_english_summary":"The Act removes sales tax on two categories: contraceptives (treated as exempt from 8 Dec 1972) and parts/accessories for converting business or industrial equipment to metric (exempt from 1 Jul 1971, with items like recording charts/chart paper excluded). It also deletes a conflicting cross‑reference and a superseded schedule item.\n\nIt chiefly affects consumers/retailers of contraceptives and businesses converting equipment, easing costs and reflecting 1970s public‑health and metrication policy priorities."},"issue_detection":{"absurdities":[{"type":"retroactive_impossibility","section":"Section 2(2)","severity":"medium","reasoning":"Retrospective tax exemptions are legally possible but create serious practical problems. Businesses that paid sales tax on qualifying metric conversion parts between 1 July 1971 and 11 April 1973 would notionally be entitled to refunds for transactions that may have been finalised, audited, or written off years earlier. The administrative machinery to identify, claim, and refund those amounts over a 21-month window would be enormously burdensome, and many affected parties would have had no notice that the exemption would ever exist.","confidence":0.82,"description":"Item 149 (metric conversion parts) is deemed to have had effect from 1 July 1971 — over 21 months before the Act received Royal Assent on 11 April 1973. Any sales tax already collected or liabilities already settled in that period would need to be unwound retroactively, which may be practically impossible for completed transactions."},{"type":"retroactive_impossibility","section":"Section 2(3)","severity":"medium","reasoning":"A taxpayer cannot comply with an exemption that did not yet exist in statute at the time of the transaction. Retailers who charged and remitted sales tax on contraceptives from 8 December 1972 onwards acted entirely lawfully under the law as it then stood, yet the Act retroactively declares those collections to have been unnecessary. This creates refund entitlements that are practically difficult to honour given that the tax may have been passed on to consumers who are long gone.","confidence":0.82,"description":"Item 150 (contraceptives) and the section 3(a) amendment are deemed to have had effect from 8 December 1972 — approximately four months before Royal Assent. This creates the same retroactive impossibility: sellers and buyers who transacted in contraceptives between December 1972 and April 1973 could not have known they were exempt, yet the Act deems them to have been so."},{"type":"other","section":"Section 3(b) — Item 149","severity":"low","reasoning":"The ejusdem generis principle would normally limit 'similar goods' to items of the same genus as recording charts and chart paper (i.e., consumable paper-based recording media). However, the absence of any definition leaves taxpayers and administrators in genuine uncertainty at the margins — for example, mylar drafting film, thermal rolls, or digital equivalents. This is a drafting ambiguity rather than a strict absurdity, but it creates real compliance uncertainty.","confidence":0.65,"description":"Item 149 exempts parts and accessories used 'exclusively, or primarily and principally' for business or industrial purposes for metric conversion, but explicitly excludes 'recording charts, chart paper or similar goods.' The phrase 'or similar goods' is undefined and potentially circular: similarity to recording charts and chart paper is itself a question of degree, creating an indeterminate boundary that makes it impossible to know with certainty whether a given consumable is excluded."},{"type":"self_contradicting","section":"Section 2(1) read with Section 2(2) and 2(3)","severity":"low","reasoning":"The structure creates an internal tension: s.2(1) announces a forward-looking commencement, while s.2(2) and s.2(3) push the operative dates well into the past for every substantive amendment in the Act. Section 2(1) is rendered largely meaningless because there are no provisions left that actually commence on Royal Assent. This is a common but still logically incoherent drafting pattern.","confidence":0.75,"description":"Section 2(1) states the Act 'shall come into operation on the day on which it receives the Royal Assent,' but subsections (2) and (3) immediately deem most of its substantive provisions to have come into operation months or years earlier. The general commencement provision is therefore effectively a dead letter — the Act's operative date for all of its substantive amendments is in the past, not the date of Royal Assent."}],"contradictions":[{"severity":"medium","section_a":"Section 2(1)","section_b":"Section 2(2) and Section 2(3)","confidence":0.78,"description":"Section 2(1) provides that the Act commences on the day of Royal Assent (11 April 1973). Sections 2(2) and 2(3) provide that every substantive amendment in the Act is deemed to have commenced on earlier dates (1 July 1971 and 8 December 1972 respectively). No provision actually commences on Royal Assent, making s.2(1) directly contradicted by s.2(2) and s.2(3) in respect of all operative content."},{"severity":"low","section_a":"Section 3(a) — omission of words from item 42(16)","section_b":"Section 4 — omission of item 62 from Second Schedule","confidence":0.55,"description":"Section 3(a) amends item 42(16) by removing the carve-out 'not being goods covered by item 62 in the Second Schedule,' while section 4 simultaneously deletes item 62 from the Second Schedule entirely. These two amendments pursue the same goal but via different mechanisms that could interact oddly: if section 4 is applied first, the reference in item 42(16) to item 62 already points to a non-existent provision, making the section 3(a) amendment operate on surplus words. If section 3(a) is applied first, the carve-out is removed before item 62 disappears, leaving item 62 temporarily operative without anything referencing it. The deemed commencement date is the same (8 December 1972 per s.2(3)), so there is no clear order of operations."}]}},"importantCases":[],"_links":{"self":"/api/acts/sales-tax-exemptions-and-classifications-act-1973","history":"/api/acts/sales-tax-exemptions-and-classifications-act-1973/history","analysis":"/api/acts/sales-tax-exemptions-and-classifications-act-1973/analysis","conflicts":"/api/acts/sales-tax-exemptions-and-classifications-act-1973/conflicts","importantCases":"/api/acts/sales-tax-exemptions-and-classifications-act-1973/important-cases","documents":"/api/acts/sales-tax-exemptions-and-classifications-act-1973/documents"}}