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Ruling

Subject: GST and the supply of education services to disabled children or students

Question 1

Are the supply of your courses GST-free as special education courses under section 38-85 (a) of the GST Act?

Answer

Yes, the supply of your courses of education that provides special programs designed specifically for children with disabilities or students with disabilities (or both) will be GST-free.

This ruling applies for the following periods:

The scheme commences on:

Relevant facts and circumstances

You are registered for GST.

You supply various services or courses to children and students who range in ages from preschool age to high school age.

Once a child or student is referred to you a series of assessments take place. A file is started on individuals and information gathered from previous assessments. From these initial assessments a specific program or learning plan is designed to meet the needs of that individual. All programs are designed to reduce the impact that their disability is having on their learning.

You supplied a copy of an individual learning plan. The plan sets out that you would meet with the individual once a week at your place of business for intervention in literacy and numeracy. In addition you will meet weekly with the child's parents and teachers. The plan showed the aims of the course and the grades that the child had received and the level they were performing at.

In developing programs for individual students you use a variety of programs- there is no single program that meets the needs of all children.

The children and students that you work with have been diagnosed with a range of disabilities including the following learning disabilities:

· Dyslexia

· Dyspraxia

· Dyscalculia

· ASD

· Social and emotional disorders

· Auditory processing and hearing impairments

· Visual processing and related impairments

· Intellectual disabilities

· Global developmental delay

The children who have access to your programs and services are usually operating at an age behind their same-aged peers across all academic areas.

Children are referred to your centre through a variety of avenues

None of the courses you supply are registered with state or government bodies.

Relevant legislative provisions

Section 38-85 of the A new Tax System (Goods and Services Tax)

Section 9-5 of the A new Tax System (Goods and Services Tax)

Reasons for decision

For there to be a taxable supply, the supply must meet all of the criteria set out in section 9-5 of A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Act 1999 (GST Act). Further, the supply must not be GST free or input taxed.

In your case:

· you will be making a supply of your courses for consideration,

· they are made in the course of your enterprise that you conduct

· your services are supplied in Australia and

· you are registered for GST.

On the facts provided your supplies will not be input taxed.

Therefore your services meet the conditions of section 9-5 of the GST Act and will be taxable supplies, unless any of your supplies are GST-free.

Of relevance to your case is section 38-85(a) of the GST Act which provides that a supply of an education course is GST free.

An education course is defined in section 195 of the GST Act to include, amongst other things, a special education course. Based on the facts you supplied there are no other defined education courses that you supply.

For GST purposes, 'a special education course' means a course of education that provides special programs designed specifically for children with disabilities or students of all ages with disabilities.

Therefore any of your listed services will be a special education course if:

· it is a course of education;

· it provides special programs; and

· the special programs are designed specifically for children with disabilities or students with disabilities (or both).

Goods and Services Tax Ruling GSTR 2002/1, Goods and services tax: supplies that are GST-free as special education courses (GSTR 2002/1) provides guidance on when a course will meet the criteria for a GST free special education course.

All special education courses are GST-free, regardless of who supplies the course or where the supply is made. Whether a course is GST-free will depend on the attributes of the course and not on the status of the provider of the course.

Courses of education

To meet these criteria GSTR 2002/1 provides that there must be a course or programme involving systematic instruction training or schooling in the areas of:

· scholastic and academic pursuits

· vocational skills or

· personal development

It can be delivered to a group of children or students or on an individual basis and may take the form of:

· a series of lessons or classes or

· a unit or module that forms part of a larger course

To be a course of education, systematic instruction training or schooling, there must be interaction between the teacher and the student which can take the form of a normal classroom delivery, tutorial based lessons where questions are posed from the student or the teacher and answered and or ongoing assessment. The mere supply of a self paced software programme or book is not an education course as it does not have the requisite interaction.

In your case

· your courses focus on improving literacy and numeracy in the context of school education through the use of courses modified from existing educational courses

· through the delivery of training programmes that are delivered in modules in series of lessons or classes either in a classroom situation or on an individual basis and

· in a systematic way that integrates classroom activities, out of class activities and ongoing assessments.

Therefore your courses meet the criteria for courses of education.

Special programmes designed specifically for children with disabilities or students of all ages with disabilities

GSTR 2002/1 provides that a programme is a special programme if it is:

· designed specifically to meet the special needs of children or students with disabilities

· designed specifically to reduce or prevent the impact of disabilities for children or students with disabilities; or

· not made available to people generally.

In addition paragraph 34 of GSTR 2002/1 provides the following guidance on the meaning of the term disability in relation to special education courses. It provides that:

Children or students with disabilities are those children or students who have a functional or structural impairment that causes them difficulty in executing activities or problems involving life situations. This would include, but is not limited to, conditions that may be diagnosed under the following broad headings:

· learning disabilities/specific learning difficulties (including dyslexia);

· autism spectrum disorder;

· physical disabilities;

· emotional disorders;

· language disorders;

· hearing impairments;

· visual impairments;

· intellectual disabilities.

In your case:

· you have advised that your students all have functional impairment of some kind which causes them difficulty in executing activities of daily life especially relating to school and education

· the individuals you work with are disabled in some form that matches the list above or meets the broader definition of disabled and

· your programmes involve assessing a child's development and modifying existing courses for their specific disabilities and needs so as to produce courses specially designed to reduce or prevent the impact of those disabilities.

Therefore your education courses that provide special programmes designed specifically for children or students with disabilities will be GST free

Note, where you provide courses that:

· are provided to students who do not have disabilities and

· are provided to students who have disabilities but do not meet the other criteria for a special education courses

· these courses will be taxable supplies as per the requirements of section 9-5 of the GST Act.

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