If your business is registered for GST (and you've reflected this in your GST settings), you'll use tax codes in MYOB to keep track of the tax you've paid and collected. Each tax code represents a particular type of tax.
MYOB has an extensive list of codes that can be used in a variety of situations—for example, when doing business with overseas customers, when tracking capital acquisitions, and so on.
Tax codes are only available in MYOB if your business is registered for GST. Also note that you can't yet delete existing ones.
You can edit tax codes, create new tax codes (except consolidated tax codes), delete some tax codes, combine some tax codes and assign tax codes to items or categories.
If you need help with the tax codes applicable to your business, seek advice from your accounting advisor or the ATO.
Summary of tax codes
Here are the default tax codes in a new MYOB business.
Tax Code | Name | Description | Default Tax Type |
|---|---|---|---|
GST | Goods & Services Tax | General tax of 10% on most goods, services, and other items sold or consumed in Australia | Goods & Services Tax |
FRE | GST-Free | Sales that are GST-free sales other than export sales, such as fresh food purchases, medical services and products, and educational courses | Goods & Services Tax |
EXP | Export Sales | Used when exporting goods, which are usually GST-Free | Goods & Services Tax |
CAP | Capital Purchase | Amounts paid for capital assets, such as plant and equipment, motor vehicles, land and buildings | Goods & Services Tax |
INP | Input Taxed Purchases | Used for the purchase of input taxed supplies, or supplies on which no GST is added to the final purchase price, such as residential rents or unit trusts | Input Taxed |
ITS | Input Taxed Sales | Used for the sale of input taxed supplies, or supplies that don't include GST in the sale price, such as financial supplies, interest income and residential income | Goods & Services Tax |
LCT | Luxury Car Tax | Used to handle special tax considerations which accompany the sale of luxury cars | Luxury Car Tax |
LCG | LCG - Consolidated LCT & GST | This tax code combines GST and LCT to calculate and track both taxes. | LCG |
GNR | GST Not Registered | Used to record purchases from suppliers who have an ABN but are not registered to collect GST | Input Taxed |
ABN | No ABN Withholding | Used for suppliers that have not quoted ABNs on their invoices, or for amounts that are withheld from investment income because no tax file number was quoted. | No ABN/TFN |
N-T | No-Tax | Used to record sales that carry no GST, such as depreciation and cash transfers. | Goods & Services Tax |
WEG | GST on Wine Equalisation Tax | Used to record GST on WET | Goods & Services Tax |
WET | Wine Equalisation Tax | Tax on wine consumed in Australia based on the value of the wine | Sales Tax |
GW | Consolidated WEG and WET | Combines the Wine Equalisation GST (WEG) and Wine Equalisation Tax (WET) codes | Consolidated |
VWH | Voluntary Withholdings | Used for contractor payments where a voluntary agreement is in place. | Voluntary Withholdings |
Summary of tax types
All tax codes have a tax type, which can't be changed. The table below describes what each tax type is for.
Tax Type | Description |
|---|---|
Consolidated | This tax type is used for taxes that are made up of two or more tax codes or sub-taxes. |
Import Duty | Importers, who are bringing goods into Australia from other countries, should use this tax type. Tax codes with this tax type are used to record the import duty payable on a purchase order without changing the total amount of the purchase order. (The import duty is treated as a separate transaction since the duty is payable to the ATO, not to the company supplying the goods.) |
Sales Tax | This tax type is associated with the Wine Equalisation Tax. |
Goods & Services Tax | This tax type is associated with the Goods & Services Tax assigned to sales and purchases. This tax type also is used for GST-free goods and GST on Wine Equalisation Tax. |
Input Taxed | This tax type should be used by organisations, such as suppliers of financial services, that must pay GST on the purchases they make but don't collect GST from their clients or customers. The Input Taxed tax type also should be used by businesses that haven't registered for GST. |
Luxury Car Tax | This tax type is used by the Automotive industry to handle the luxury car tax. |
Voluntary withholdings | This tax type should be used for the PAYG voluntary withholdings scheme. |
No ABN/TFN | This tax type should be used for suppliers that have not quoted ABNs on their invoices, or for amounts that are withheld from investment income because no tax file number was quoted. This type indicates that the tax code is a PAYG Withholding tax type and will always be rounded down to the nearest dollar. You should use a No ABN/TFN tax code of 47% for suppliers who do not quote an ABN on invoices for more than $75 tax exclusive, or where amounts are withheld from investment income because no tax file number was quoted. If both of these situations apply to your company, you will need to create two tax codes to handle them separately. |
Create a tax code
You're not able to create a new consolidated tax code.
Go to the Accounting menu and choose Tax codes.
Click Create.
Complete the details of the tax code — these will vary depending on the Tax type you've chosen. Any fields marked * , such as Tax code, are mandatory. You may also need to choose a linked category for tax paid or collected (learn more about linked categories).
Click Save.
Edit a tax code
What you can edit in tax codes
Only users with the Accountant/Bookkeeper or Administrator user roles and permissions can edit tax codes. See Users.
In most tax codes, you can edit all of the fields in a tax code except the Tax type.
If you change the Rate % of a tax code, it won't change the rate for existing transactions which used that tax code.
You can also change or create a new Linked contact for tax authority.
In the N-T tax code, you're not able to change the Tax code, Tax type or Rate.
Go to the Accounting menu and choose Tax codes.
Click to open the tax code you want to edit.
Make your changes.
You can only enter a maximum of 3 letters in the Tax code field.
Click Save when you're done.
Delete a tax code
You can delete a tax code if it has never been used in a transaction or has not been assigned to a category, contact or item.
If the tax code has been used in a transaction, you will not be able to delete it, even after deleting any associated transactions. This makes sure you keep a history of records used in transactions for auditing reports. If it's never been used, make sure it isn't assigned to a category, contact or item before you delete it.
You are also not able to delete the GST or N-T tax codes.
Go to the Accounting menu and choose Tax codes.
Click to open the tax code you want to delete.
Click Delete.
Click Delete again in the confirmation message that appears.
Combine tax codes
You can merge two tax codes to remove any unused codes or if you're are moving to Simpler BAS.
You can only combine tax codes that have the same:
rate
linked categories
linked contacts (if a linked contact has been chosen).
You can't combine consolidated tax codes.
Choose the tax code to delete, and which tax code to move the deleted tax code's history to. All contacts, accounts and other records update to the new tax code.
If you use AccountRight, we recommend making a backup in AccountRight before combining tax codes.
Go to the Accounting menu and choose Tax codes.
Click Combine Tax Codes.
Choose the tax code you want to keep from the Move transaction history to list. This is the code the deleted code’s history moves to.
Choose the tax code to delete from the Delete this tax code list.
The next action cannot be undone
Before continuing, check you’ve selected the correct tax codes to combine. If you're not sure, click Go back.
Once you combine tax codes, the only way you can go back to the old tax codes is to restore from a backup (if you have AccountRight installed) and re-enter transactions posted using these codes since the backup. If you're not an AccountRight user and haven't created a backup before combining tax codes then this is not an option.
You can also edit some details of the combined tax code, such as the name, rate or linked categories.
Click Combine.
Assign a tax code to a category
You can assign a tax code to any detail category in your category list. The tax code you assign will appear as the default tax code when you post a transaction to this category.
For example, you have assigned the GST tax code to your electricity expense category. When you settle your electricity bill in the Create spend money transaction page and allocate it to this category, the GST tax code will appear in this window by default.
You can allocate a tax code to a category. To open this page, go to the Accounting menu > Categories (Chart of accounts), and click the required category.
Assign a tax code to an item
When you set up a product or service, you must assign a tax code to use when buying or selling it.
These tax codes will appear by default when buying and selling your products or services unless you have specified that the customer or supplier tax code is to be used instead.
You assign tax codes to items in the following sections of the item:
Buying and Selling section
Profile section.
For more information, see Creating items.