Letter to the Editor

from a West Australian mining executive

Wanted – a Lawfirm to conduct a class action Law Suite – GST Anomaly

The GST Act became operational in the year 2000 with all GST Collected to be transferred to the Commonwealth Government and then distributed to the States according to the agreed formula.

The Western Australian Dept of Mines charged GST on all tenement rents and services from 2000 to July 2010. At that time, Tenement rents were increased approx. 10% and the GST component was no longer charged through to the current time 2019.

Question1. Surely the GST charged from 2000 through to 2010 is recoverable along with compound interest unless the GST act was amended specifically to remove the requirement to charge GST on tenement rents.

Question 2. If the GST legislation was not amended in 2010, possibly, the GST on mining tenements is actually charged but not transferred to the Commonwealth Government as required by the GST Act. Should this question be answered in the affirmative, then this will compound into several more serious problems such as; tenement holders have not claimed the GST actually paid and consequently their tax records are incorrect. Additionally no shire council operating as a local Government Authority can charge GST on land taxes (as rates) as this is forbidden in the GST Act.

The shires that levy taxes on Mining Tenements can only do so via the formula where the tenement rent is multiplied to a valuation and then charge a percentage of this valuation which is false and fraudulent if these tenement rents actually contain an undisclosed GST component.