Goods Taken From Stock For Own Use

ATO guidance says that when you take trading stock for private use you must “account for it as if you had sold it” and include the value in your business income.

If your business is registered for GST, it is treated as a taxable sale (to yourself), with the GST being (1/11th of the value) unless the goods are GST‑free or input‑taxed.

“Accounted for” means that the GST component of the Goods value will form part of the taxable sales disclosed in your BAS at the end of the period.

If the characterisation of the private use occurs some time later than its purchase by the business, input tax credits would not need to be reversed (in this instance), because the original purchase was in the normal conduct of the business. You should clarify this with your professional adviser.

The Tax Determinations referred to on this page are prepared by the Tax Office for Income Tax purposes, and values provided do not include GST.

Goods withdrawn by the owner are not a business expense; they reduce inventory.

The Tax Office view is to treat it as if you sold the goods, so the value of those goods must be included in assessable income.

The usual treatment is to treat goods taken for own use as drawings on the debit side, and a credit as income at the determined cost or market on the other.

Because small businesses generally use the same figures for the financial statements and the tax return, the “deemed sale” is typically booked into the year‑end journals.

Example

Business owner Butcher with a spouse and 2 children uses the 2025-26 Tax Determination values to account for Goods Taken for the family’s use for that financial year.

The value calculation for 2 adults and 2 children is set out in the image above, determined with the calculator at the top of the page. The value (excluding GST) is $3,210 for the year. Including GST if it applies, the value is $3,531.

If not registered for GST, the year end journal (or a sales line) will be reflected as:

DEBIT	Drawings	3210
CREDIT	Sales (or Inventory)		3210

For a business registered for GST, an additional entry will go to the GST payable account for BAS purposes. The journal entry then looks like the following (assuming full year, GST at 10%)

DEBIT	Drawings (includes GST)	3531
CREDIT	Sales (BAS Code G1)		3210
CREDIT	GST Payable (BAS code 1A)		321

Alternatively, some may prefer to separately credit the Inventory or Purchases with $3,210 (journal line 2) for accounting measurement reasons. The bottom line effect is the same.

The Tax Determination only includes values for Adults (including children over 16) and Children from age 4 to 16.

But this does not mean under‑4s can be ignored.

So the overriding ATO guidance must be referred to, which means::

• Use actual records of what was taken for the under‑4 child (preferred if it is substantial), or
• Make a “fair and reasonable” estimate and keep a record of methodology. An example of this could be a calculation which uses a percentage of the Child aged 4 to 16 amount as a means of estimating consumption.

No, but the sale (market) value must still be returned as business income. The transaction(s) may also engage the FBT rules, which should be separately considered.

The Tax Office still require you to account for the value of Goods taken for your own use. This means maintaining records which support a valuation.

It is recommended that such records include:

• date
• description of what was taken
• the reason stock was taken
• the cost or market value of the item (excluding GST).

The Determinations on this page provide a way to calculate the value of Goods Taken using Tax Office estimated values.

This is optional (as the Determination itself explains).

An alternative is to calculate the values based on your own records. The records are expected to include:

• date
• description of what was taken
• the reason stock was taken
• the cost or market value of the item (excluding GST).

The methodology for formulating the values is set out in an Appendix to the Tax Determination.

The Appendix lists the characteristics of industries included in the Schedule. The selected industries should:

• exhibit a transformation process of trading stock items (for example, baking)
• have as trading stock a range of small items or ingredients, usually of low value
• not be suited to inventory systems, and
• have a high turnover of items, often for cash

To simplify tax return calculations, the Tax Office each year publishes a schedule of values (excluding GST) which assumes a level of usage by the business types listed, and assigns an arbitrary value.

Valuations for amounts in the Schedule are derived from Household Expenditure Survey results issued by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and adjusted for consumer price index movements for each category of items. The Surveys are used to estimate the community’s level of spending on a range of items.

Further consideration is given to the kinds of stock items likely to be present in the inventories of each of the industries on the Schedule.

These values can be used by business proprietors as the value to be added to income to cover the private usage, and avoids the need to keep records to account for actual use.

However, it is open to taxpayers declare private usage on the basis of records kept which show actual consumption, if the Schedule values do not reflect a taxpayer’s specific circumstances. See PS LA 2004/3 (GA)

Annual updates of Goods From Stock values

The Tax Office’s practice is to update and reissue the schedule as a Tax Determination annually, based on the CPI statistics. The latest issue (at the time of writing) is provided above. Previous years’ values are listed below.