The Australian Taxation Office has reminded taxpayers that GST and fuel tax credits will lapse if not claimed within four years, urging businesses to review their reporting processes carefully to avoid losing entitlements with no scope for late amendments. 

RF Report

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) announced on 14 January 2026 that GST credits and fuel tax credits will expire if not claimed within the four-year time limit.

In 2024, the ATO published Miscellaneous Taxation Ruling MT 2024/1 Miscellaneous tax: time limits for claiming an input tax or fuel tax credit. It explains that GST and fuel tax credits will expire if not claimed within the four-year credit period. This is generally four years from the due date of the original BAS in which taxpayers could have claimed them.

Lodging an amendment request or voluntary disclosure doesn’t preserve the credit entitlements. ATO needs to process the taxpayers’ amendments and include them in their assessment within the four-year credit time limit, the credits expire. Once credits expire, ATO has no discretion or ability to amend the assessment to include those credits.

When claiming credits, one should:

  • Have good governance frameworks and processes in place to regularly review the correctness of their reporting – this should reduce the need to address mistakes in past periods near the four-year credit time limit. For the Top 100 large corporates, ATO expects taxpayers to make disclosures to us in real-time, including errors on the BAS;
  • ensure credits are correctly calculated and keep accurate records to support the claims – penalties may apply if taxpayers claim credits they’re not entitled to;
  • actively manage the risks of expiry of their credits if taxpayers identify a mistake by considering the options available to them;
  • expect additional scrutiny if taxpayers seek to change long-standing positions to uplift GST recovery, for instance, where an apportionment methodology is changed for periods to increase the rates claimed – this will likely take longer to review and may need further information, so taxpayers should factor this into their timeframes.

Available options

If a taxpayer is under current compliance or assurance activity, they should discuss the options available to preserve credit entitlements with their case team as early as possible. It takes time to consider these requests, and the ATO may require supporting evidence.

If credits are near expiry, instead of writing to request an amendment, taxpayers should consider:

  • Claiming the credits in their next BAS that’s still within the 4-year credit time limit – these amounts may be subject to future review;
  • requesting the amendment by lodging a revised BAS, an RBAS, for the tax period to which the credits are attributable via Online Services. RBAS requests are generally processed faster than amendment requests in other forms;
  • lodging a valid objection against their assessment for the period to which the GST credits are attributable before the end of the four-year credit time limit. This should be a last resort and is only appropriate in certain circumstances.

The ATO’s web content about the Time limit on GST credits explains these options in detail.

If a taxpayer has already lodged an amendment request, they should actively monitor it. If credits are within a month of expiring and haven’t been processed, they should contact the ATO to follow up at 13 28 66 (within Australia). Large business taxpayers can also use the available services for Australia’s largest taxpayers to follow up on the progress.

Differences between the four-year credit time limit and the period of review

The four-year credit time limit is different to the period of review. The period of review is the period the ATO can amend an assessment, generally four years from when a taxpayer lodges their BAS. The ATO can, however, extend the period of review by agreement.

The four-year credit time limit for GST credits and fuel tax credits applies more strictly. If credits have expired, the ATO is unable to amend assessments to include these credits, even if the period of review is still open. This means there may be situations where the ATO amends for overpaid or underpaid GST or overclaimed credits, but additional credits can’t be included in an amended assessment. So, it’s important to make sure taxpayers claim any credit entitlements within the four-year credit time limit.