How Australian Small Business Operators Learned about the Goods and Services Tax

Abstract

A goods and services tax (GST) was introduced in Australia on 1 July 2000. It was hailed by a commentator as one ‘of the most radical revenue reforms in half a century’ (Surry 2000) requiring businesses, both small and large, to comply with new tax regulations. The introduction of this government mandated scheme provided an excellent opportunity to understand how small business operators learned to implement new practices. This paper reports the findings of an investigation into how 30 small businesses in Queensland, Australia, learned about and came to implement the GST. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with small business operators during 2001–2002 and case studies were prepared that described each of the small businesses’ readiness for and process of implementation of this initiative. This paper identifies and discusses factors influencing small business operators‘ readiness to learn about the GST and the activities and interaction undertaken by them that assisted their learning.