The following Bills received Royal Assent on 28 June 2013:
- Tax Laws Amendment (Medicare Levy) Bill 2013 as Act No 81 of 2013. Gives effect to the Government’s 2013 Budget proposal to increase the Medicare levy low-income threshold for families, as well as the dependent child component of the threshold.
- Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment (Increased Concessional Contributions Cap and Other Measures) Bill 2013as Act No 82 of 2013. Contains the following amendments:
- amends the ITAA 1997 and the Income Tax (Transitional Provisions) Act 1997 to increase the concessional contributions cap temporarily to $35,000 for the 2013-14 financial year for individuals aged 60 years and over, and to $35,000 for the 2014-15 financial year and later financial years for individuals aged 50 years and over. The temporary cap will cease when the general cap indexes to $35,000;
- amends the income tax and superannuation law and the TAA to reduce the tax concession for concessionally taxed superannuation contributions of very high income earners by 15%. For individuals above the “high income threshold” of $300,000, an additional 15% tax (ie the contributions tax is 30%) will be levied on the taxpayer’s “low tax contributions” (essentially concessional contributions, as modified by special rules for certain defined benefit interests etc) from 1 July 2012.
- Tax Laws Amendment (2012 Measures No 6) Bill 2012 as Act No 84 of 2013. Contains amendments concerning: FBT and in-house benefits, medical expenses rebate, managed investment trusts (MITs), limited recourse debts, native title benefits, exploration expenditure, deductible gift recipients (DGRs), and other miscellaneous amendments.
- Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment (2013 Measures No 1) Bill 2013 as Act No 88 of 2013. Contains amendments concerning: loss carry-back [amended]; SMSF asset acquisitions and disposals [removed from the Bill]; FBT and airline transport fringe benefits; interest on unclaimed money; Sustainable Rural Water Use and Infrastructure Program; and miscellaneous amendments.
- Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment (2013 Measures No 2) Bill 2013 as Act No 85 of 2013. Contains amendments concerning GST instalment system; super co-contribution; merging multiple accounts in super; dependency tax offsets; TOFA changes; natural disaster payments; documentaries and film tax offsets; new DGRs listed.
- Superannuation (Sustaining the Superannuation Contribution Concession) Imposition Bill 2013 as Act No 87 of 2013. Contains the mechanism by which the tax concession referred to in the Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment (Increased Concessional Contributions Cap and Other Measures) Bill 2013 (see above) is reduced. The Bill also contains consequential amendments to legislation concerning some of the Commonwealth defined benefit superannuation plans where members of those plans are affected by the reduction in the tax concession for concessionally taxed superannuation contributions.
- Superannuation Laws Amendment (MySuper Capital Gains Tax Relief and Other Measures) Bill 2013 as Act No 89 of 2013. Facilitates the MySuper reforms by providing income tax relief to superannuation funds where there is a mandatory transfer of default members’ account balances to a MySuper product in another superannuation fund.
- Charities (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2013 as Act No 96 of 2013. This Act, together with the Charities Bill 2013 [which received Royal Assent the following day, on 29.6.13] will introduce a statutory definition of “charity” and “charitable purpose” that applies to all Commonwealth legislation from 1 January 2014.
[LTN 124, 1/7/13]