# ATO: Do you meet the GST threshold?



## Jack Malarkey (Jan 11, 2016)

From the Australian Taxation Office's small business newsroom:

https://www.ato.gov.au/Newsroom/smallbusiness/GST-and-excise/Do-you-meet-the-GST-threshold-/
*Do you meet the GST threshold?*








*21 August 2020*
If you're not registered for GST, tax time is the perfect time to check your business turnover to see if you need to register.
You'll need to register for GST:

when you have an annual turnover (gross income minus GST) of $75,000 or more, or $150,000 for non-profit organisations
if you provide taxi travel for passengers (including ride-sourcing) regardless of your GST turnover - this applies to both owner drivers and if you lease or rent a taxi
if you want to claim fuel tax credits for your business.
You should check each month to see if you've reached the GST threshold.
Remember, registered tax agents and BAS agents can help you with your tax.
*Next step:*

Registering for GST
*See also:*

Claiming GST credits


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## Jack Malarkey (Jan 11, 2016)

Once you need to register for and pay GST, you need to pay it on all your business turnover.

Let's say you are a rideshare driver with GST turnover of $30,000 and food delivery turnover of $15,000 and turnover from a lawn-mowing business of $10,000.

You need to register for GST irrespective of your turnover because you are providing 'taxi travel' for paying passengers. You then need to pay GST not only on your rideshare turnover but also on your food delivery turnover and your lawn-mowing turnover even though the total of that other turnover ($25,000) is below $75,000.

DriveTax has a good explanation of all this:

*'GST Registration If You Do Food Delivery AND Rideshare*

_'This is where things get confusing.

'If you drive for UberEats AND UberX, or any do other ridesharing AND food delivery driving, then you must register for GST because of your ridesharing. This is because all rideshare drivers must register for GST from the first dollar they earn._

'_Here's the catch: your GST registration applies to ALL your business activities, not just the rideshare driving. This means you'll be paying GST on your delivery income AS WELL AS your ridesharing income. Of course to offset this you can claim back the GST on your delivery expenses to reduce your GST bill, but you're still likely to be paying a portion of your delivery earnings to the ATO in GST. This is an unfortunate side-effect of doing both types of driving at once.'_

https://www.drivetax.com.au/tax-for-food-delivery-drivers/


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## Icecool (Feb 8, 2016)

Jack Malarkey said:


> Once you need to register for and pay GST, you need to pay it on all your business turnover.
> 
> Let's say you are a rideshare driver with GST turnover of $30,000 and food delivery turnover of $15,000 and turnover from a lawn-mowing business of $10,000.
> 
> ...


But jack you have also have to charge 10 % GST for the uber food delivery . and all your other business activities becuase you have registered for gst .


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## Jack Malarkey (Jan 11, 2016)

Icecool said:


> But jack you have also have to charge 10 % GST for the uber food delivery . and all your other business activities becuase you have registered for gst .


A supplier supplier may (but isn't legally obliged to) pass on GST to the consumer. The supplier has the option of absorbing the GST cost.

In any event, Uber tells me that I am passing it on:

_*'I am registered for GST and I deliver with Uber Eats? Are Uber Eats fares inclusive of GST?*

'Yes, Uber Eats fares are inclusive of GST'.

https://www.uber.com/au/en/drive/tax-information/faq-and-resources/_


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## Icecool (Feb 8, 2016)

Jack Malarkey said:


> There is in fact no legal obligation for a supplier to pass on GST to the consumer.
> 
> In any event, Uber tells me that I am passing it on:
> 
> ...


The way it works is that if you're registered for GST you have charge gst . don't know how uber eats works. but no gst are charge to the supplier if you're not registered for for gst.


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## Max Arnold (Mar 24, 2017)

Icecool said:


> The way it works is that if you're registered for GST you have charge gst . don't know how uber eats works. but no gst are charge to the supplier if you're not registered for for gst.


That is a grey area with Uber.
I have not been driving for UberEats, Menulog etc since March 26th but I am sure it is still the same now.
Last Year I was driving for Uber, Uber Eats, Ola, Bolt and Menulog and was registered for GST etc. where I paid the GST on all Income.
In July 2019 I decided to stop Rideshare but still do food deliveries and kept my GST registration active as I had other work (IT Support etc.) where I wanted to claim GST etc. even though my income was under 74K.

Both Menulog & UberEats charge the customer GST on our behalf and here is where it gets interesting.
Menulog ask if you are GST registered and if you say "Yes" that add 10% to your payment each week. Where I was earning $657.90 they actually placed $723.69 into my bank account.
Now that was perfictly ok with me as it was correct and meant MenuLog paid the GST for all the delivery drivers not registered.

BUT UberEats is the exception.
When I was doing Rideshare and Eats, the Uber commission was 25%
As soon as my T code was removed from my license and I advised Uber they removed X & XL from my account and increased the commission to 30%
My understanding is the extra 5% commission is for them to pay the GST from all the delivery drivers not registered for GST.
No matter what I did to prove to them that I was still GST registered and paying the 10% GST, they would not drop the commission back down to 25%
They kept telling me to remove my GST registration when I did not want to as I have other Income Streams and need to get the GST Credits on what I purchase.

Finally I gave up and have not done many UberEats deliveries since October 2019 as I am not prepared to give Uber extra money.
Since October to March I had done under 5 UberEats per week compared to 80 to 100+ from Menulog.


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## Icecool (Feb 8, 2016)

Max Arnold said:


> That is a grey area with Uber.
> I have not been driving for UberEats, Menulog etc since March 26th but I am sure it is still the same now.
> Last Year I was driving for Uber, Uber Eats, Ola, Bolt and Menulog and was registered for GST etc. where I paid the GST on all Income.
> In July 2019 I decided to stop Rideshare but still do food deliveries and kept my GST registration active as I had other work (IT Support etc.) where I wanted to claim GST etc. even though my income was under 74K.
> ...


No grey area. it's black and white. To do uberx you have register for gst. UberX commissions always has gst becuase uber is registered for gst. Don't know how uber eat and the other food deliveries works. The way uberx works is that you're the one who charged the riders the fare which has gst becuase by law shareride are require to register for gst. Uber then charge you 25 %+gst as a commission. But you can claim the gst Back as a tax credit. so it's still only 25% commission. 
Maybe this is how uber eat and the others food deliveries works. As the food delivery driver you're not require to register for gst. The food cost plus delivery fees are included in the food prices but are charge to uber not to the driver. The driver charge uber for the deliver fees. if the driver are registered for gst uber will pay you 10 % more for the gst. If you're not registered for gst then you won't be pay the gst.


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## UberDriverAU (Nov 4, 2015)

Jack Malarkey said:


> Let's say you are a rideshare driver with GST turnover of $30,000 and food delivery turnover of $15,000 and turnover from a lawn-mowing business of $10,000.
> 
> You need to register for GST irrespective of your turnover because you are providing 'taxi travel' for paying passengers. You then need to pay GST not only on your rideshare turnover but also on your food delivery turnover and your lawn-mowing turnover even though the total of that other turnover ($25,000) is below $75,000.


If the threshold had been adjusted for inflation over the years (as it should have been imho) it would now be ~$121K. I wonder how many providing "taxi travel" would get close to that? &#129300;


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## Jack Malarkey (Jan 11, 2016)

UberDriverAU said:


> If the threshold had been adjusted for inflation over the years (as it should have been imho) it would now be ~$121K. I wonder how many providing "taxi travel" would get close to that? &#129300;


Agreed.

From 1 July 2000 to 30 June 2007, the GST threshold was $50,000. From 1 July 2007 onwards, it has been $75,000. (See https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parlia...oncessions_for_business_in_the_2007-08_Budget).

There has been no increase since 1 July 2007.

On a different but related tack, I find it interesting that the differential treatment of taxi and rideshare drivers compared with those operating other kinds of business helped many of those who began driving from 1 July 2019 onwards qualify for jobkeeper. This was because the absence of the usual $75,000 threshold meant that they had lodged business activity statements by 12 March 2020 when they otherwise wouldn't have.


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## Mehmet2 (Sep 7, 2017)

Hi mate im just putting here one of my earnings i just want to know how you calculate and how much exactly my gst turnover on this one. Thanks for all your tax advices.


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## Jack Malarkey (Jan 11, 2016)

Mehmet2 said:


> Hi mate im just putting here one of my earnings i just want to know how you calculate and how much exactly my gst turnover on this one. Thanks for all your tax advices.


DriveTax has a good explanation of this:

https://www.drivetax.com.au/uber-gst/#Calculating-GST
For the calculation of GST turnover for jobkeeper purposes, see:









Uber Driver's Guide to COVID Government Payments


Check the tax implications of COVID payments from the government and Centrelink for Uber, rideshare and delivery drivers.




www.drivetax.com.au


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