Goods and Services Tax Act 1985

Imposition of tax

8A: Certain supplies of telecommunications services

You could also call this:

"Rules for phone and internet companies when they can't find a customer's physical address"

Illustration for Goods and Services Tax Act 1985

If you are a telecommunications supplier, you have to follow some rules. When you cannot find out where a person is physically because of the type of service or the kind of customer they are, you must treat the supply of telecommunications services as being in New Zealand. This happens if the person's address for getting invoices from you is in New Zealand, and by address, it means their physical home or business address where invoices are sent, not a post office box number.

You do not have to follow this rule when you are supplying telecommunications services to another telecommunications supplier. If this rule applies to you, you must follow it for all supplies of telecommunications services for that type of service or customer. You can find more information about this in section 8(2), but this specific rule is an exception to that.

As a telecommunications supplier, you need to be consistent in how you apply this rule to your customers.

This text is automatically generated. It might be out of date or be missing some parts. Find out more about how we do this.

This page was last updated on 18 July 2025

View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM82416.

Topics:

Money and consumer rights > TaxesMoney and consumer rights > Consumer protection

8: Imposition of goods and services tax on supply, or

"When you buy things in New Zealand, you pay a 15% goods and services tax."

8B: Remote services: determining residence of recipients, or

"How online sellers decide if you live in New Zealand to charge GST"

Part 2Imposition of tax

8ACertain supplies of telecommunications services

Despite section 8(2), if a telecommunications supplier cannot apply section 8(6) because it is impractical for the supplier to determine the physical location of a person due to the type of service or to the class of customer to which the person belongs, the supplier must treat a supply of telecommunications services as being supplied in New Zealand if the person's address for receiving invoices from the supplier is in New Zealand.
Subsection (1) does not apply to supplies made between telecommunications suppliers.
If subsection (1) applies, the telecommunications supplier must satisfy subsection (1) for all supplies of telecommunications services made for the type of service or the class of customer.
In this section, address means the physical residential or business address of a person to which invoices are sent, and does not include a post office box number.

Notes

Section 8A: inserted, on 1 July 2003, by section 155 of the Taxation (Maori Organisations, Taxpayer Compliance and Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2003 (2003 No 5).