What Is Tax Invoice? How It Affects Your Reselling Profits

Tax Invoice: A formal invoice required for GST-registered businesses to claim GST credits. Must include: seller's ABN, date, description of goods, total price, and GST amount shown separately. If you're GST-registered, buyers who are also businesses may request a tax invoice. For resellers under the AU$75,000 GST threshold, tax invoices are not legally required but can be provided voluntarily. Keep tax invoices for all business expenses to support deduction claims. That is the textbook version. What matters to you as a seller is how this concept affects your profits. For the quick definition, see our Tax Invoice glossary entry. This post covers the practical side.

What It Actually Means

Strip away the jargon and tax invoice comes down to one thing. A formal invoice required for GST-registered businesses to claim GST credits. Must include: seller's ABN, date, description of goods, total price, and GST amount shown separately. If you're GST-registered, buyers who are also businesses may request a tax invoice. For resellers under the AU$75,000 GST threshold, tax invoices are not legally required but can be provided voluntarily. Keep tax invoices for all business expenses to support deduction claims. In everyday selling, that looks like this: you list an item, a buyer searches for it, and whether they find yours depends partly on how well you understand tax invoice.

Most sellers encounter tax invoice without realising it. You have already dealt with it if you have ever wondered why one listing gets views and an identical one does not. The difference often traces back to this concept.

How It Affects Your Bottom Line

Understanding tax invoice directly affects how much you keep from each sale. Here are the numbers.

On eBay, where seller fees are 0% and payment processing adds Included in final value fee via eBay Managed Payments, your margin on a $50 item is already tight. If you do not account for tax invoice, you lose another chunk of that margin to slower sales, lower prices, or wasted listing time.

Sellers who understand this concept price more accurately, list more efficiently, and sell faster. That is not theory. It is the difference between $15 an hour and $30 an hour when you factor in your time.

The practical takeaway: learn this once, apply it to every listing. The compounding effect across hundreds of listings is significant.

Where This Applies

Tax Invoice plays out differently depending on the marketplace. Each platform has its own rules and buyer expectations.

eBay: With 12 million AU users (25–55, balanced), tax invoice matters here because highest volume, widest reach, established sellers. The 0% seller fee (see eBay fees) means understanding this concept directly protects your margin. Read more about eBay.

Shopify: With 0 AU users (Varies, varies), tax invoice matters here because building your own brand and customer base. The 0% seller fee (see Shopify fees) means understanding this concept directly protects your margin. Read more about Shopify.

Related Concepts

Tax Invoice does not exist in isolation. These related terms round out your understanding.

• gst: Closely connected to tax invoice. Understanding both gives you a more complete picture of how marketplace selling works.
• abn: Closely connected to tax invoice. Understanding both gives you a more complete picture of how marketplace selling works.
• bas: Closely connected to tax invoice. Understanding both gives you a more complete picture of how marketplace selling works.

Each of these concepts reinforces the others. Sellers who understand the full set make better decisions across pricing, listing, and sourcing.

Knowing tax invoice gives you an edge that compounds across every listing. Apply it consistently and your per-item profit goes up without working harder. If you are selling across multiple platforms, Try Shopfront free to manage everything from one dashboard.