The Government has issued for comment a discussion paper on reforms to the Offshore Banking Unit (OBU) regime.
As part of the 2013 Federal Budget, the Government had announced that it would amend the OBU regime “to better target genuine mobile financial sector activities and address integrity issues with the current regime”. The regime taxes banking activity in an OBU at 10%, rather than at the corporate rate (ie 30%). The discussion paper also covers recommendations for reform of the OBU regime made in the Johnson Report.
In releasing the discussion paper, the Assistant Treasurer also announced that the changes will now apply to income earned on or after 1 October 2013 (instead of 1 July 2013 as announced in the Budget). Mr Bradbury said the amended start date came after initial industry consultation, including through the Corporate Tax Sustainability Roundtables.
COMMENTS are due by 19 July 2013.
Source: Assistant Treasurer’s media release No 128, 28 June 2013
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