To uphold a country's political and economical stability, governments often implement policies. There are many different types of policies that a government would implement to stabilize their country. However, one significant policy that almost every country uses is tax. In particular, Australia and Canada use a value added tax known as the Goods and Services Tax (GST). Australia's GST policy was introduced by the Howard government and went into effect on July 1st, 2000. This GST policy replaced the wholesale sales tax system and other various minor taxes like that of stamp duty and bank account debits tax. In other words, the "goods and services tax is a broad-based tax of 10% on most goods, services and other items sold or consumed in Australia." (http://www.ato.gov.au/) The GST policy affects more than just people in Australia, it affects the economy of the country. Thus, the Australian government had probably implemented this tax for a number of reasons, and a number of benefits. GST impacts a great deal in Australia as GST is placed on all the imports to Australia along with the tax imposed on practically all aspects of the production and distribution of the goods and services. To briefly explain the GST will enable the understanding of the impacts, effects and the reason of its implementation to Australia.
As an overview, when the GST is imposed upon the goods and services, it is then known as taxable supplies'. These goods and services will be all of the goods and services that have been imported. Furthermore, this tax is charged at all stages of its production and distribution process. However, it must be known that there are some goods and services that are exempt from being taxed by the GST. This list of exemption goods differ from country to country who implement the GST tax. For example, in Singapore, the exempted items will include the following of financial services, or the selling and the leasing of