Australian Bank Notes Tax Act 1910

Bank Notes Tax Act 1910
Private currency issued by the City Bank of Sydney c. 1900
Parliament of Australia
Date assented to	10 October 1910
Date repealed	21 August 1945
Status: Repealed

The Bank Notes Tax Act 1910 was an Act of the Parliament of Australia which imposed a prohibitive tax on banknotes issued by banks. The Act, enacted by the Fisher Labour Government, imposed an annual tax of 10% on "all bank notes issued or re-issued by any bank in the Commonwealth after the commencement of this Act, and not redeemed," and effectively ended the use of private currency in Australia. The Act was enacted under Section 51 (xii) of the Constitution of Australia that gives the Commonwealth Parliament the power to legislate with respect to “currency, coinage, and legal tender.”

In the same year, the federal government introduced a national currency, the Australian pound, and also passed the "Australian Notes Act" which prohibited the circulation of State notes and gave control over the issue of Australian notes to the Commonwealth Treasury.

The Act was repealed by the Commonwealth Bank Act 1945, enacted by the Chifley Labor Government, which instead imposed a fine for issuing a private currency.

S.44(1) of the Reserve Bank Act 1959 now prohibits private currencies. In 1976, Wickrema Weerasooria published an article which suggested that the issuing of bank cheques violated the section, though some banks responded that since bank cheques were printed with the words "not negotiable" on them, the cheques were not intended for circulation and thus did not violate the statute.