Commonwealth Consolidated Acts

A NEW TAX SYSTEM (GOODS AND SERVICES TAX) ACT 1999 - SECT 184.1

             (1)  Entity means any of the following:

                     (a)  an individual;

                     (b)  a body corporate;

                     (c)  a corporation sole;

                     (d)  a body politic;

                     (e)  a * partnership;

                      (f)  any other unincorporated association or body of persons;

                     (g)  a trust;

                     (h)  a * superannuation fund.

Note:          The term entity is used in a number of different but related senses. It covers all kinds of legal persons. It also covers groups of legal persons, and other things, that in practice are treated as having a separate identity in the same way as a legal person does.

          (1A)  Paragraph (1)(f) does not include a * non-entity joint venture.

             (2)  The trustee of a trust or of a * superannuation fund is taken to be an entity consisting of the person who is the trustee, or the persons who are the trustees, at any given time.

Note 1:       This is because a right or obligation cannot be conferred or imposed on an entity that is not a legal person.

Note 2:       The entity that is the trustee of a trust or fund does not change merely because of a change in the person who is the trustee of the trust or fund, or persons who are the trustees of the trust or fund.

             (3)  A legal person can have a number of different capacities in which the person does things. In each of those capacities, the person is taken to be a different entity.

Example:    In addition to his or her personal capacity, an individual may be:

    sole trustee of one or more trusts; and

    one of a number of trustees of a further trust.

                   In his or her personal capacity, he or she is one entity. As trustee of each trust, he or she is a different entity. The trustees of the further trust are a different entity again, of which the individual is a member.

             (4)  If a provision refers to an entity of a particular kind, it refers to the entity in its capacity as that kind of entity, not to that entity in any other capacity.

Example:    A provision that refers to a company does not cover a company in a capacity as trustee, unless it also refers to a trustee.

Note:          For GST purposes, non-profit sub-entities are treated as entities (see Division 63), and government entities can be treated as entities (see Division 149).