Tax Invoice Requirements in Australia: The ATO Checklist

A tax invoice missing one required field is not just untidy: it stops your customer claiming their GST credit, so they bounce it back and you get paid weeks later than you should have. The ATO's list of what a tax invoice must contain is short and legally defined, and most trade invoices that fail do so on the same two or three items. Here is exactly what has to be on the document, when you are allowed to charge GST at all, what changes once a job hits $1,000, and what it costs you to leave your ABN off.

The seven things an ATO tax invoice must show

For a taxable sale under $1,000, the ATO requires seven things. One: that the document is intended to be a tax invoice, which in practice means the words "Tax invoice" on it. Two: the seller's identity, meaning your business or trading name. Three: your ABN. Four: the date the invoice was issued. Five: a brief description of what you sold, including quantity where it applies, and the price. Six: the GST amount payable, either as its own line or, where GST is exactly one-eleventh of the total, the statement "Total price includes GST". Seven: the extent to which each sale is taxable, so a mixed invoice makes clear which lines carry GST. Notice what is not on that list: an invoice number, your address, your payment terms, your bank details. None of those are legally required, but leaving them off is how you end up chasing money. Number every invoice sequentially, put your terms in writing, and give the customer a way to pay on the spot.

Jobs of $1,000 or more need the buyer's details too

Once the taxable sale is $1,000 or more, the tax invoice must also show the buyer's identity or their ABN. For most trades that covers anything beyond a service call, so the simplest habit is to capture the customer's proper name on every invoice and stop thinking about the threshold. "Dave" or "Unit 4" is not an identity. Use the individual's full name or the name the business actually trades under, and make it match the contract. If you are subcontracting, get the entity name and ABN in writing before you start. The trading name painted on the ute is very often not the entity that pays you, and sorting that out after the invoice has been rejected is the slow way to do it.

It is $75,000, not $82,500: the GST registration threshold

This is the number people most often get wrong. GST registration becomes compulsory when your GST turnover reaches $75,000 or more, not $82,500, which is a different rule covered below. $75,000 is roughly $6,250 a month, and it is not a financial-year test: your projected GST turnover is the current month plus the next 11. Sign a $90,000 renovation in March and you cross the line in March, not on 30 June. You then have 21 days to register. Get it wrong and the ATO can backdate your registration, and you will owe one-eleventh of what you invoiced in that period whether or not you ever charged GST. On $120,000 of work that is $10,909 from your own pocket. You can claim GST credits on your purchases for the same period, but on labour-heavy work they will not cover much. Below $75,000 you can register voluntarily, worth doing if you are buying materials and tools and want those credits back.

Not registered? Then it is an invoice, not a tax invoice

If you are not registered for GST you must not charge GST, and you must not issue a document headed "tax invoice". Call it an invoice, leave GST off entirely, and still show your business name, ABN, the issue date, a description of the work and the total. Charging GST while unregistered is one of the quickest ways to attract attention, because your customer claims a credit for GST that was never remitted. It also changes your competitiveness. To a GST-registered customer such as a builder or a strata manager, a registered competitor's $1,100 invoice really costs $1,000 after the credit, while your $1,100 costs the full $1,100. Against households it runs the other way: you can quote your base price without adding 10% on top.

No ABN on the invoice? The payer must withhold 47%

There is no $82,500 threshold, but there is a $75 one, and it cuts both ways. If a supplier does not quote an ABN and the payment is more than $75 excluding GST, the payer must withhold tax at the top rate, currently 47%, being the top marginal rate plus the Medicare levy, and remit it to the ATO. In practice: leave your ABN off an invoice to a builder and you may be paid 53 cents in the dollar and wait until you lodge your return for the rest. The same $75 turns up on the buying side, plus GST. You need a valid tax invoice to claim a GST credit on any purchase costing more than $82.50 including GST; below that a receipt or bank record will do, though you still need documentary evidence. The narrow way out is the ATO's "Statement by a supplier" form, which covers genuinely private, domestic or hobby supplies, not a trade business that has not got around to registering.

Getting the GST arithmetic right

GST is 10% added to the ex-GST price, which makes it one-eleventh of the GST-inclusive total, not 10% of it. On a $2,200 invoice, GST is $2,200 divided by 11, so $200, and the ex-GST value is $2,000. Taking 10% off the top gives $220, which overstates the GST and understates your income, a small error that compounds across a quarter's BAS. Going the other way, multiply your ex-GST price by 1.1. Mixed invoices need more care. If some lines are taxable and others are not, and most residential trade work is taxable but the odd government fee passed through at cost may not be, the invoice has to show which lines carry GST, the total GST and the total payable.

The invoice mistakes that actually cost trades money

In rough order of how often they turn up: heading the document "Invoice" when you are registered, so it legally is not a tax invoice and the customer cannot claim; a missing or mistyped ABN; a description so vague it cannot be verified or defended, because "labour and materials, $4,800" is both a compliance weakness and a dispute waiting to happen; no buyer name on a job of $1,000 or more; charging GST while unregistered; duplicate or reused invoice numbers; and invoicing straight off the original quote without adding the variations you actually did. Most come from writing invoices by hand at 8pm, which is the argument for building them from the job instead of from memory: in Taskr you can speak the invoice into your phone in the driveway, and the standing parts, the heading, your ABN, the GST treatment and the next number in sequence, come from your settings, so the description of the work is the only thing left to get right.

Timing, records and the 28-day rule

If a customer asks for a tax invoice, you have 28 days from the request to provide it. Keep invoices and supporting records for five years, including supplier dockets, so photograph them and attach them to the job as you go. Taskr's receipt scanning ties supplier costs to the job line they belong to, which does double duty for record-keeping and job costing. On the timing of GST itself, if your aggregated turnover is under $10 million you can account for GST on a cash basis, so you remit it when you are actually paid rather than when you issue the invoice, a real cash-flow difference on 30- and 60-day terms. Two more: if a builder pays you on a recipient-created tax invoice, they issue the document instead of you, which needs a written agreement and both parties registered for GST. And in building and construction, if you pay subcontractors, your Taxable Payments Annual Report is due 28 August.

A 60-second audit of your last invoice

Open the most recent invoice you sent and check it in order. Does it say "Tax invoice"? Is your business name on it? Your ABN, digits correct? An issue date? A description with quantities someone else could verify? The GST amount shown, or "Total price includes GST"? If the job was $1,000 or more, is the customer's proper name or ABN there? If you are not registered for GST, does the invoice avoid the words "tax invoice" and show no GST at all? Seven checks, one minute. If it passes, fix the template once and every invoice after it passes too. If it fails, reissue it corrected today.