GST - Interest on Investments
22 February 2006
In the past week we have received a number of questions about recent ATO activity in this area. As a result of ATO questionnaires about the BAS treatment of interest on investments, the ATO has suggested that these should have been treated as Out Of Scope (OOS) of GST, thus not included on the BAS.
This has created confusion for those involved and given we have had queries from a number of different entities on the same issue felt it worthy of an alert notice.
In our interpretation, this interest income should be treated as Input Taxed and acknowledged in G4 on your BAS. As there has been no official ATO notification that it is to be treated any differently, we suggest you treat this income as Input Taxed until official, written advice from the ATO is received to the contrary.