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7. Department of Home Affairs

How the Department of Home Affairs contributed to GST collection and administration in 2023–24.

Published 1 January 2025

The Home Affairs portfolio including the Australian Border Force (ABF), is responsible for the collection of customs duty and other indirect taxes including GST at the border. Home Affairs also administers the deferral of GST on imported goods for registered importers under the Deferred GST Scheme.

In 2023–24, Home Affairs:

  • collected $5.6 billion GST and $40.1 billion deferred GST on imported goods, representing a total GST liability assessed of $45.7 billion
  • processed 4.4 million import declarations and self-assessed clearance declarations
  • processed 1.5 million export declarations
  • processed 816,000 Tourist Refund Scheme (TRS) claims resulting in $279.8 million of GST and wine equalisation tax being refunded to travellers.

The focus of the ATO and Home Affairs (ABF) is to manage compliance with Australia’s import and export framework and to control, detect, deter and address illicit trade behaviours.

Compliance program

The ABF maintains the integrity of Australia’s trade system through effective intelligence-led, risk-based border management, and enhanced aviation and maritime security approaches. Australia’s prosperity is driven by open access to a global market where goods can move freely across borders, facilitated by the delivery of a seamless, secure and digitally enabled system and services.

ABF ensures that it effectively:

  • collects revenue
  • detects revenue evasion
  • ensures importers and their agents are compliant with border revenue laws and processes.

In 2023–24, ABF had a specialised unit focused on revenue evasion. This represents an ongoing major risk at the border and can include the avoidance of paying taxes, excise and duties. This unit provides a dedicated target development capability focusing on the research and analysis of revenue related risks and producing assessments to inform targeting and intervention activities. They managed to identify a potential GST revenue shortfall of approximately $20 million.

In 2023–24, total Home Affairs (ABF) compliance activities identified over $258 million in GST understatements. Of this, approximately $230 million in GST revenue understatements were identified by voluntary disclosure. As voluntary disclosure cases rely upon self-reporting, fluctuations are common. Reported values are not indicative of seasonal trends or operational tempo, and are not a predictor of future trends.

Tourist Refund Scheme

As international travel continues to recover strongly, so too does TRS claim activity, with $279.8 million in claims paid in 2023–24. This surpassed the previous highest amount of $256.8 million in 2018–19.

The volume of claims processed increased 53% and the value of refunds paid to travellers increased 48% when compared to 2022–23.

Over 99% of eligible TRS claims were paid within 60 days of departure, as prescribed by legislation.

Table 7.1: Management of GST revenue collection ($m)

Category

2019–20

2020–21

2021–22

2022–23

2023–24

GST liability assessed

32,244

33,555

42,068

45,657

45,701

Gross GST cash collected

4,372

4,795

5,739

5,871

5,617

– Total value of Tourist Refund Scheme (TRS) claims paid

197.6

21.2

47.2

188.8

279.8

Net GST cash collected

4,175

4,774

5,692

5,683

5,337

Note: GST Performance Agreement Schedule A 10a–c.
Table 7.2: Maintain compliance

Type of measure

2019–20

2020–21

2021–22

2022–23

2023–24

Cost of compliance ($m)

34.2

33.0

37.7

38.7

37.9

Compliance coverage – TRS (%)

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

TRS claims rejected (no.)

11,487

780

2,157

8,416

10,457

GST adjustments – underpaid GST revenue ($m)

109.6

145.6

190.2

189.1

258.1

GST adjustments – rejected TRS claims ($m)

1.8

0.3

0.4

1.8

2.0

Total GST adjustments ($m)

111.4

145.9

190.6

190.9

260.1

Note: GST Performance Agreement Schedule A 11a–f.

GST administration costs

GST administration costs for Home Affairs increased $1.4 million to $68.2 million in 2023–24. While GST administration costs continue to increase, compliance efficiencies to recover GST liabilities improved, delivering a compliance yield of 6.87:1.

Table 7.3: Cost-effective administration cost ($m)

Type of measure

2019–20

2020–21

2021–22

2022–23

2023–24

Costs of import processing

22.6

21.2

28.3

27.8

30.1

Costs of export processing costs

0.2

0.2

0.4

0.3

0.3

Costs of import and export compliance

15.6

18.9

20.7

21.7

21.9

Costs of administering the TRS

18.6

14.0

16.9

16.9

16.0

Total costs

57.0

54.5

66.3

66.8

68.2

Note: GST Performance Agreement Schedule A 12 a–e.
Table 7.4: Cost-effective administration

Type of measure

2019–20

2020–21

2021–22

2022–23

2023–24

Import declarations processed (million)

4.0

4.3

4.4

4.4

4.4

Export declarations processed (million)

1.4

1.3

1.3

1.3

1.5

Total TRS claims processed (thousand)

766

50

138

561

816

Total costs as a percentage of total GST liability assessed (%)

0.2

0.2

0.2

0.1

0.1

Total costs as a percentage of total GST collected (%)

1.3

1.1

1.2

1.1

1.2

Compliance yield (ratio)

3.26:1

4.42:1

5.06:1

4.93:1

6.87:1

Note: GST Performance Agreement Schedule A 12 f–k.

QC103659