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Commonwealth act
This Act is about making sure that Commonwealth-owned bodies and agencies (such as government authorities set up by federal legislation) cannot use their special legal status to dodge paying payroll tax in the Northern Territory.
When the Northern Territory gained self-government in 1978, it took over the power to collect its own payroll tax (a tax that employers pay based on the wages they pay their workers). Before that, payroll tax in the Territory was handled under a federal law called the Pay-roll Tax (Territories) Assessment Act 1971. Some Commonwealth authorities had been paying payroll tax under that federal law or under State payroll tax laws — but when the NT took over, there was a legal grey area about whether those bodies still had to pay.
The Act closes two specific legal loopholes that Commonwealth authorities might otherwise use to avoid paying NT payroll tax:
Loophole 1 — "We're tax-exempt" clauses: Many Commonwealth authorities have a clause in their own founding legislation saying they don't have to pay taxes that the Commonwealth itself doesn't pay (the Commonwealth as a whole is generally exempt from State and Territory taxes). This Act says that clause cannot be used to avoid Northern Territory payroll tax — if the authority was already registered as a payroll tax employer (or had applied to be registered) before this Act came into effect, they must keep paying.
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Direct links to the current provisions in Commonwealth Authorities (Northern Territory Pay-roll Tax) Act 1979.
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View on official registerSourced from the Federal Register of Legislation (legislation.gov.au), CC BY 4.0.
Loophole 2 — "Only if regulations say so" clauses: Some Commonwealth authorities' founding laws say they only have to pay a particular tax if it's specifically listed in regulations (subordinate rules made under that Act). If an authority was already subject to a State or federal payroll tax law listed in such regulations before this Act, the NT payroll tax law is automatically treated as if it were also listed in those regulations — so the authority can't argue they haven't been formally told to pay it.
Without this Act, Commonwealth bodies operating in the NT could have argued their special legal status meant they were suddenly free from payroll tax the moment the NT took over the tax. This Act ensures a smooth handover — if you were paying payroll tax before, you keep paying it, just to the NT instead of the federal government.