GST issues registers

Food industry partnership

Issue 32 – Are raw/unprocessed olives GST-free as food for human consumption?

For source of ATO view, refer to the Detailed food list.

A supply of food will be GST-free under section 38-2 of the A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Act 1999 (GST Act). The term 'food' is defined in subsection 38-4(1) of the GST Act to include 'food for human consumption (whether or not requiring processing or treatment)' emphasis added.

Raw/unprocessed olives supplied as food for human consumption satisfy the definition of food contained in paragraph 38-4(1)(a) of the GST Act.

However, under paragraph 38-3(1)(c) of the GST Act, a supply of food will not be GST-free if it is food of a kind specified in the table in clause 1 of Schedule 1 of the GST Act (Schedule 1).

Raw/unprocessed olives are not specified in Schedule 1.

In addition, the supply of raw/unprocessed olives does not fall within any of the other exclusions in section 38-3 of the GST Act.

Accordingly, the supply of raw/unprocessed olives is a GST-free supply under section 38-2 of the GST Act, even though raw/unprocessed olives are unpalatable and require further processing or treatment prior to consumption.

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You are free to copy, adapt, modify, transmit and distribute material on this website as you wish (but not in any way that suggests the ATO or the Commonwealth endorses you or any of your services or products).