The federal government will move to impose the goods and services tax on services such as Netflix under new rules set to be included in next week's budget.

Championed by Assistant Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, the change will apply GST to imports of so-called "intangibles" such as downloaded books, music, videos and software. The GST already applies to imported parcels worth more than $1000.

The change will push up the price of a Netflix subscription by 10 per cent.

The government's expenditure review committee has been told that the change is fairly easy to make, requiring little redrafting of the Tax Act.