This title provides a fully-indexed andcomprehensive consolidation of all legislation relating to Australia's GST system, and incorporates all amendments enacted to1 January 2012. The book also includes all relevant luxury car tax and wine equalisation tax legislation. There is also a separate section containing the full definitions of terms used in the GST legislation which are defined in non-GST legislation.

"This title provides an in-depth index and comprehensive consolidation of all legislation relating to the Australian GST system, and incorporates all amendments enacted to 1 January 2014. The book also includes all relevant luxury car tax and wine equalisation tax legislation. There is also a separate section containing the full definitions of terms used in the GST legislation which are defined in non-GST legislation."--Publisher's website.

This book explores one of the most significant trends in the evolution of global tax systems by asking how, within less than half a century, the value-added tax (VAT) has risen from relative obscurity to become one of the world's most dominant revenue instruments. Despite its significance, very little is known about why so many countries have adopted the VAT and, in particular, why different countries adopt the types of VAT that they do. The popular mythology provides that the merits of the VAT have underpinned its global spread; however, this book contends that much scholarship confuses the question of why the VAT has risen to dominance with the issue of what makes a good VAT. This book combines policy and legal analysis to propose a new way of understanding the rise of this important revenue instrument so as to better reflect the realities of the VATs that are actually implemented.

Insurance constitutes a significant part of the financial services sector and is one of the foundations of modern economy and society. In the design of tax laws, however, whether and how to tax insurance is a complex issue that has become particularly controversial in the area of value-added tax (VAT). In the European Union, as in most of the world, insurance is exempt from VAT, but New Zealand and Australia do not follow this practice. Given that New Zealand’s simple, comprehensive goods and services tax (GST) – called ‘the world’s purest value-added tax’ – and its modified Australian version do not appear to suffer from the shortcomings in efficiency and effectiveness that plague European VAT, a comparison of the two systems is in order. This book is not only the first comparative in-depth study of the treatment of insurance in the two systems, but also the first comprehensive legal research devoted to the treatment of insurance in EU VAT published in English. Among the underlying issues and topics treated by the two systems covered are the following: – who has a right to deduct input VAT in relation to supplies inherent in insurance arrangements and to what extent; – what constitutes a supply of insurance and consideration for such a supply; – what transactions fall within the scope of the VAT Directive’s exemption for insurance; and – drawing a line between insurance and saving. The analysis is grounded in a methodology in which concepts of European VAT are compared with concepts performing the same function in the Australian and New Zealand GST laws. The author concludes with proposals for reform in EU VAT in the light of experience in these two major non-EU countries. Given that it has been proven that exemptions from VAT (such as insurance) cause a significant number of economic distortions and inefficiencies, this study represents a major contribution to a topical debate in European VAT law. It will be welcomed by taxation authorities, interested policymakers, practitioners, and scholars not only in Europe but worldwide.

The most important and recent judgments of the CJEU Considering the ever-increasing importance of indirect taxation as a source of revenue for governments, the intensifying complexity of the legal framework, and the proliferating number of countries adopting indirect taxation, it is essential to scrutinize how the law is applied in practice. The primary driving force in this area is, undoubtedly, the Court of Justice of the European Union. This book analyses selected topics (e.g. taxpayer rights in EU VAT law, bad debt and insolvency in VAT law, taxable base and rates, exemptions, and deductions) by examining the most prominent and recent judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union. Experts from all over the world, not just from academia but also government and judiciary representatives as well as tax practitioners, have provided their input and helped us compile what is an informative and worthy read for anyone dealing with indirect taxation on a professional basis.

Most VAT systems exclude public bodies from the scope of value added tax (VAT) systems. However, a movement to include public sector bodies within the GST system to some extent or even fully (as in New Zealand) is gaining momentum, and underlies the European Commission’s 2011 study on the treatment and economic impact of exemptions in the public interest. Whether the present EU treatment really is as bad as some of its critics suggest, and whether the New Zealand model really is so perfect that jurisdictions with exclusion models ought simply to replace these existing systems with a New Zealand style system: these are the questions which triggered this research and which form the basis for the critical analysis contained in this book. Using a system design point of view, the author focuses on VAT systems where exclusion or inclusion of public bodies are currently being applied and on how these models function. He presents an in-depth analysis of the major issues in this context, such as the treatment of public bodies as taxable persons, their right to deduct input VAT on acquisitions, and the treatment of the income of public bodies. Specific aspects examined [nclude the following: reallocation of funds and income vs. the production/distribution/consumption cycle; the concept of ‘merit goods’; bias to self-supply instead of contracting out; preference to integrate vertically in the supply chain; applicability of VAT to government regulatory services; tax cascading in the public goods and services context; administration and compliance burden in government agencies; interpretational and implementation difficulties in EU Member States; and VAT compensation schemes in the public sector context, and whether these constitute illegal State aid. The book concludes with an insightful discussion of what might be considered as ‘best practice’ in relation to both the exclusion and full tax models. Beyond its thorough discussion of the treatment of public bodies in various VAT systems, and in the EU VAT system in particular, this is the first book on how a GST/VAT system may be designed to best accommodate public bodies, and as such it is sure to be warmly welcomed by practitioners, academics, and policymakers as a valuable contribution to the debate on the relation between VAT and public sector activities.