GST on NDIS travel and non-face-to-face

A provider travel line billed alongside a support is consideration for that support, so it carries what that support carries. The canonical NDIS template writes the rule on the row itself rather than leaving it to a note, and the row is the one the product resolves a travel line through.

GST-free when the travel is in the participant's plan and tied to a listed support; taxable when tied to a non-listed support. The same pattern applies to NDIS_AGENCY and NDIS_SELF.⁵

That pushes the question one step back, onto the support. Physiotherapy, occupational therapy, psychology, speech pathology, podiatry, dietary and social work sit on the ATO's list of health services, and a listed service performed by a recognised health professional is GST free where the profession generally accepts it as necessary for the appropriate treatment of the recipient of the supply. The test is who engaged the practitioner, not who pays the invoice, so a plan manager paying does not move the answer. A support NDIS funds that is not on that list has to pass a longer test before it is GST free at all.

The non-listed supports page works that test through, and the listed supports page covers the shorter route. The NDIS template names a missing written agreement as the most common reason the exemption fails, which the written service agreement page takes on its own. Travel does not get its own answer from any of them. It gets whichever answer the support arrived at.

Every one of those postings is GST free, which reads like a settled question until a non-listed support is in the mix. The travel account is defaulted GST free, which fits travel billed beside listed clinical work. The default is a starting position, not a finding, and the NDIS template says so on the account itself.

The reason the override matters is the cascade underneath it. A line resolves on its funding source and service category together, then on the funding source alone, then on the practice default. A travel line with no item override of its own does not reach the taxable answer, however clearly the support it belongs to is non-listed, because nothing in those three levels knows which support the kilometres were driven for.

Non-face-to-face time shares an account with travel in the NDIS template, and it shares the reasoning. Session notes, planning and preparation billed as part of a support are consideration for that support, so they follow it. That is why the account is named for both and why one override decision covers both kinds of line for a given support item.

Report writing is the case that does not settle this neatly, and the template keeps it apart on purpose: a report funded in the plan as part of a therapy support is arguable, while a report written for a school, an insurer or a court is taxable third party work. The NDIS report writing page holds that question rather than this one. A cancellation claim works the same way as travel, taking the treatment of the support it replaces.

The NDIS pricing arrangements set how much provider travel can be claimed and under what conditions. They were read here for the GST rule rather than for the travel rules, so this page states no minutes, no distance limits and no modified Monash figures. Those are claiming rules rather than tax rules, and they change on their own schedule.

A separate question is what happens to an out-of-pocket cost recharged at cost: parking, a toll, a taxi fare. The ATO's guidance on goods supplied with a health service reaches goods, and the determination's travel item is about assisting a participant with transport arrangements rather than about a provider's own trip. Whether such a recharge rides with the therapy or stands as its own supply is not settled by anything read for this page, and it sits in the open questions below.