On 3 April 2020, the OECD Secretariat issued guidance on various ‘cross-border’ tax issues affected by the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic. See below for further detail. [Tax Month – April 2020]
On Monday 13 April 2020, the NSW Government announced a package to assist residential tenants (with no assistance to the landlords – unless the announcement about land tax relief, for landlords of SME commercial tenants, affected by COVID-19, also applied to landlords of residential leases, which it might – see related TT article). There have…
On Monday 13 April 2020, the NSW Treasurer issued a Media Release about facilitating COVID-19 affected SME commercial tenants to negotiate rent relief, in line with the Prime Minister’s 7 April 2020 announcement of a mandatory Code of Conduct (see related TT Article) with associated land tax relief, to the landlord, if it is passed…
On Tuesday 14.4.20, ASIC made and registered the ASIC Corporations (COVID-19 – Advice-related Relief) Instrument 2020/355, providing tax agents temporary AFS licensing exemption to provide financial product advice, to their existing clients, about the early release of superannuation under the Coronavirus condition of release (see related TT article). See below for further detail. [Tax Month – April 2020]
The Federal ‘JobKeeper’ scheme was legislated on 8 April 2020 and the Rules, which set out the relevant detail, were made one day later (on 9.4.20). Most people know that this provides employers money (for employees they pay at least $1,500 per fortnight) – see related TT article. But this Scheme also applies to the…
On 9 April 2020, the Treasurer made and registered the JobKeeper Rules, which flesh out the substance and detail of the $1,500 per fortnight JobKeeper scheme. The enabling legislation was passed in only one day, one day earlier (8.4.20). There are related TT articles, setting out the Rules and providing links to the enabling legislation.…
On 9 April 2020, one day after the Treasurer released an ‘exposure draft’ of JobKeeper Rules (Coronavirus Economic Response Package (Payments and Benefits) Rules 2020), he finalised these Rules final and registered them on the Federal Register of Legislation. These Rules were accompanied by an Explanatory Statement. Incidentally, it was on Wed 8 April 2020,…
Coronavirus Payment and Omnibus Bills (containing the headline ‘JobKeeper’ benefit regime) were introduced and passed in a single day, being the day on which Parliament was recalled, purely for this purpose (Wed 8.4.20). See below for a summary of the effect of these 2 main acts. [Tax Month – April 2020]
The JobKeeper Payments legislation sets up the statutory framework for the implementation of the payments system (see related TT article). The actual rules and taxpayer requirements are to be contained in statutory rules made by the Treasurer, which will be administered by the Commissioner. To this end, Treasury has released an ‘Exposure Draft’ of those rules.…
On 7 April 2020, the National Cabinet agreed that all Australian states and territories would implement a Mandatory Code of Conduct via legislation or regulation as appropriate for the purpose of regulating the reduction of rent for commercial tenants. See below for details. [Tax Month – April 2020]