Click here for Tax & Super Australia’s full Federal Budget coverage for the 2017 Budget.A federal budget wish list
The following was published in the lead up the Budget night, May 9, 2017.
In the lead up to this year’s federal budget, Tax & Super Australia provided the government with a submission outlining the taxation measures that we viewed as being most important for Australia and the ongoing robustness — and indeed improvement — of the Australian tax system.
Most of our members are small and medium sized tax agents, with their key client groups comprising small business operators and individuals who manage their own tax affairs (a cohort that also figures in a significant way in our membership base).
Given our membership demographics, we focus our tax advocacy activities (which of course includes providing the government with submissions such as that mentioned above) on legislative and administrative matters that are most relevant to our membership.
Our recommendations are driven by the priorities, concerns and ideas gleaned from our members. We gather this directly from the membership through various channels, including our helpline service, member surveys, the discussion groups and other training activities, as well as feedback to our emailed communications and to the website.
The proposals Our proposals for individual taxation included a tax offset for older workers to encourage mature age participation in the workforce. The offset would reduce the effective tax rate applying to employment income, would be uncapped, refundable, and easy to apply.
Also proposed for individuals was that interest derived from bank deposits and other passive investments should be concessionally taxed.
We also recommended a $2,000 standard work-related expense deduction – no substantiation required. These class of deductions are a key source of the ATO’s compliance burden, and would free up its otherwise scarce resources for more revenue-positive pursuits. Interestingly, the latest ATO data shows that such deductions average not much over that level of $2,000.
On behalf of small businesses, we has asked for the $20,000 instant asset write-off to be retained and a $10 million eligibility threshold for the small business concessions, which thankfully has come to partial fruition (see point number 2 in this article).
Superannuation changes are big news right now, and we have asked for specific improvements to the new laws, and in particular that penalties for a failure to comply be directed to the income stream provider and not the superannuant. We also suggested an expansion of the myGov superannuation dashboard to provide online tools to help taxpayers understand and comply with the new super rules.
There are many more recommendations in the Tax & Super Australia pre-budget submission, which can be read in the attached document.
Will our wishes be granted? Be sure to stay tuned on budget night next Tuesday (May 9) for all the updates from Tax & Super Australia. Members will receive an email on the night, and further updates and more details will be posted to this website both on the night and the next morning.
# [ATO], [budget], [federal budget], [tax]
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