Yesterday the Commissioner published GSTR 2013/2 ‘Goods and services tax: adjustment notes’ which replaces GSTR 2000/1 (which has now been withdrawn). A number of Legislative Instruments were also made dealing with issues relating to adjustment note requirements, being:

• A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Waiver of Adjustment Note Requirement (Decreasing Adjustments Relating to Reimbursements of an Employee etc) Legislative Instrument 2013 – the instrument states that for the purposes of attributing a decreasing adjustment to a tax period in respect of an acquisition that is covered by section 111-5 of the GST Act, an entity is not required (under subsection 29-20(3) of the GST Act) to hold an adjustment note if the requirements of this instrument are satisfied.
• A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Waiver of Adjustment Note Requirement (Decreasing Adjustments Relating to Supplies made by or to a Partnership) Legislative Instrument 2013 – the instrument states that for the purposes of attributing a decreasing adjustment (arising from an adjustment event) to a tax period, a supplier or recipient that has a decreasing adjustment in relation to a supply or an acquisition made by a partner in their capacity as a partner of the partnership, is not required (under subsection 29-20(3) of the GST Act) to hold an adjustment note if the requirements of this instrument are satisfied.
• Goods and Services Tax: Adjustment Note Information Requirements Amendment Determination 2013 – the instrument states that the purpose is to clarify the operation of certain paragraphs of A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Adjustment Note Information Requirements Determination 2012 and to insert a new clause.

GSTR 2013/2 – Adjustment notes

The Ruling sets out the requirements for adjustment notes under Division 29 of the GST Act, in particular:

• when a document is in the approved form for an adjustment note;
• the information requirements that the Commissioner has determined under paragraph 29-75(1)(c) of the GST Act, and an explanation of how those information requirements in the A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Adjustment Note Information Requirements Determination 2012 apply; and
  
• when the Commissioner will treat a particular document as an adjustment note even though that document does not meet all of the adjustment note requirements under subsection 29-75(1).

Also, the Ruling includes a helpful appendix summarising the circumstances when a decreasing adjustment can be attributed without an adjustment note as determined by the Commissioner under subsection 29-20(3).