If you are a tax professional, you need to be aware that your small business clients with a GST turnover of less than $10 million moved to Simpler BAS reporting from 1 July 2017.
Small business clients previously on GST instalments will have no change to their instalment notice. On their annual GST return they only need to provide us with G1 Total sales, 1A GST on sales, 1B GST on purchases and 1H GST instalment amounts.
Electronic commerce interface (ECI) and some practice management software do not support the Simpler BAS changes. BAS lodgments made through these channels require a 0 inserted at G10 and G11. ECI is closing in December 2019.
All other digital lodgment channels support the Simpler BAS changes.
Provided the accounting software used by a small business supports Simpler BAS bookkeeping, they can choose the bookkeeping settings to use for GST classification coding – either the Simpler BAS approach (fewer GST classifications) or the existing detailed classification approach.
Regardless of which bookkeeping approach is used, small businesses reporting under Simpler BAS only need to provide us with G1 Total sales, 1A GST on sales and 1B GST on purchases on the BAS.
What Simpler BAS means for you
Simpler BAS helps you and your clients to move away from 'form filling' and making unnecessary changes in preparing the BAS that have no impact on the net (final) GST amount.
Tax professionals participating in user testing told us that Simpler BAS:
- enables greater use of streamlined data automation options such as automatic bank feeds and Standard Business Reporting (SBR) technology
- reduces the time spent on administrative tasks like setting up accounting software and validating entries
- allows for easier classification of transactions and BAS preparation and lodgment
- makes reporting and lodging on behalf of small business clients easier.