Private ruling: Registration requirements
Date of advice: 15 February 2017
Published: April 2017

Ruling: Q1: Are you required to be registered for GST for your business of providing healthcare services? | A1: Yes, you are required to be registered for GST for your business of providing healthcare services.

Relevant facts and circumstances: You are registered for GST. You provide private paramedic services to clients. Generally, you are engaged by clients conducting events. You invoice the event organiser for services delivered during the event. You do not invoice the individual patients that may be attended to during an event. To enable you to provide paramedic services, you contract with qualified personnel. You provided a copy of your Standard Terms and Conditions which sets out a number of relevant clauses.

Relevant legislative provisions: A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Act 1999 Division 23.

Reasons for decision: Summary: You are required to be registered for GST if you are carrying on an enterprise and your GST turnover meets the turnover threshold. When you are required to be registered for GST you are liable to pay GST on the taxable supplies that you make. As you are a company that provides services to the public for profit, you are conducting an enterprise. Your current GST turnover at a time during a particular month is the sum of the values of all the supplies that you have made, or are likely to make, during the 12 months ending at the end of that month, other than: (a) supplies that are input taxed (you don’t make input taxed supplies); or (b) supplies that are not for consideration; or (c) supplies that are not made in connection with an enterprise that you carry on. A similar calculation must be done for your projected GST turnover which includes the current month and the next 11 months. If you are a member of a GST group, the calculation is done based on the value of all the supplies that you and the other group members make but without including supplies made from one group member to another member of the group. If your current or projected turnover meets or exceeds $75,000 you are required to be registered for GST. One of the exclusions from making taxable supplies is where your supplies are GST-free. Whether you make GST-free supplies of ‘other health services’ under section 38-10 of the A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Act 1999 (GST Act) is irrelevant to whether you are required to be registered. However, for completeness I will explain why your company does not make GST-free supplies. For section 38-10 of the GST Act to apply the service: (a) must be of a kind specified in the table at section 38-10(1)(c) (b) the supplier must be a *recognised professional (as defined in section 195-1), in relation to the supply of services of that kind, and (c) the supply must be generally accepted in the relevant profession as being necessary for the appropriate treatment of the *recipient of the supply (as defined in section 195-1). Item 14 of the table at section 38-10(1)(c) lists Paramedical services. However, you do not provide the paramedical services. You arrange for the supply of authorised practitioners to attend events. Your standard terms and conditions clearly show that the paramedical supplies are made by independent practitioners. Additionally, it is the independent practitioners that would be ‘recognised professionals’ in relation to the supply of the paramedical service. Therefore, you do not supply other health services and your supplies are not GST-free.