28 November 2018

Government continues to modernise business registers

Note

The Morrison Government is continuing to consult on the modernisation of business registers by undertaking a review of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission's (ASIC) registry fees.

The modernisation of business registers will transform the way businesses interact with government. These reforms will make it easier and faster to start and run a business and encourage innovative uses of business data.

Currently, ASIC collects a range of registry fees from companies and other entities, including registration fees, annual review fees, late fees and search fees.

As part of this review, the Government is consulting on ways to make the registry fee regime simpler, easier to understand and more equitable.

The Government will consider the findings of the review in 2019. Any changes to the fee regime will be delivered through the Modernising Business Registers (MBR) program.

In this year's Budget, as part of the MBR program, the Government announced that registers currently administered by ASIC and the Australian Business Register (ABR) will be moved to a modern registry platform administered by the ABR within the Australian Taxation Office. This includes the registers for companies, business names and Australian Business Numbers.

ASIC regulatory fees, including those associated with the Industry Funding Model, are not in scope of this review.

The review paper is available on the Treasury website. Interested parties are encouraged to provide their views by 21 December 2018.