The Minerals Resource Rent Tax Repeal and Other Measures Bill 2013 [No 2] was on Mon 1.9.2014] laid aside in the House of Reps. This followed the Senate’s insistence on amendments it had made to the Bill to which the House had disagreed. In its place, the Government introduced and passed the Minerals Resource Rent Tax Repeal and Other Measures Bill 2014. It now moves to the Senate.
The Bill proposes to repeal the mining tax and its associated measures such as loss-carry back, low income superannuation contribution, the income support bonus, geothermal expenditure deduction, and schoolkids bonus. The Bill also proposes to reduce the instant asset write-off threshold (from $6,500 to id=”mce_marker”,000) and discontinue the accelerated depreciation arrangements for motor vehicles.
The Bill also proposes to allow the Treasurer to vary the super guarantee (SG) percentage (currently 9.5%) by legislative instrument. The Government announced in the 2014-15 Federal Budget changes to the schedule for increasing the SG charge percentage to 12% so that it would reach that rate from 2022-23. In order to provide businesses and the community with appropriate notice about changes to the SG charge percentage should the passage of the repeal legislation be further delayed, the amendments proposed in the Bill would allow the Treasurer to vary the SG charge percentage for a particular year starting on 1 July, subject to a number of strict conditions.
All of the repeals and amendments of the mining tax-related measures, with the exception of SG charge percentage amendments, would commence on the earlier of a day or days to be fixed by proclamation or 12 months after Royal Assent.
[LTN 168, 1/9/14]