TaxRambling.com

So what tax laws are sitting in the Parliament for our hard working MPs to consider in the last sitting week before the May Budget?

1. A bill that has been in the Parliament for 4 days less than a year that supplements the ‘same business test’ with a ‘similar business test’  and to provide taxpayers with the choice to self-assess the effective life of certain intangible depreciating assets they start to hold on or after 1 July 2016… Its not like anyone has completed a 2017 tax return already!!!
2. A Bill to transfer the regulator role for early release of superannuation benefits on compassionate grounds from the Chief Executive Medicare to the Commissioner.
3. A Bill that prohibits the production, distribution, possession and use of sales suppression tools and also requires entities that provide courier or cleaning services to report details of transactions that involve engaging other entities to undertake those courier or cleaning services for them.
4. A Bill that provides that a corporate tax entity will not qualify for the lower 27.5 per cent corporate tax rate if more than 80 per cent of its assessable income is income of a passive nature.
5. A Bill that progressively extends the lower 27.5 per cent corporate tax rate to all corporate tax entities by the 2023-24 financial year; and further reduce the corporate tax rate in stages so that by the 2026-27 financial year, the corporate tax rate for all entities will be 25 per cent.
6. A Bill that removes the entitlement to the capital gains tax main residence exemption for foreign residents.
7. A Bill that requires purchasers of new residential premises and subdivisions of potential residential land to make a payment of part of the purchase price to the ATO.

Add to this some changes to tax concessions for Venture Capital, the Banking Levy, new whistle blower protections, a new Junior Mineral Exploration incentive, tax consolidation fixes, and a lot of minor super changes (can’t use salary sacrificed super to meet SGC requirements and those under EBAs must get a choice of super form)…

As almost all of these were announced in last years budget (some in the budget from the year before), wouldn’t it be great if they finalised these in the last sitting week before we get the next budget with an entirely new set of announcements!!!!