TREASURER:
I thought it was important to give you an update on proceedings. The House, as you know, has risen because the changes to the Racial Discrimination Act have now been passed and it was necessary for the House to remain to complete that business. Yesterday, I received advice from the Australian Taxation Office that it was not necessary for the House of Representatives to remain in order for them to implement any changes that would be determined by the Senate in relation to the Enterprise Tax Plan. This is a fairly standard procedure, it is often done, usually in terms of personal income tax cuts, where there is bipartisan support and the tax office is able to go about their business of putting those arrangements in place.
So, any amendments that are passed in the Senate, the advice says, “And the Treasurer makes announcements saying the Government will support those amendments to become law that will allow them to anticipate the rate cuts to become law. In accordance with standard practice, the law changes that are anticipated but not yet enacted, they would update their new legislation web page to indicate that fact, and that they would be anticipating changes for instalment purposes,” as per the next dot point, as they advise. “They would ensure,” that is the ATO, “that the tax professionals are also advised of the ATO's anticipation.”
So, this would lead to final quarter adjustments for June 2017. The upshot of all of that is that any arrangements completed by the Senate would be able to be acted upon by the ATO, following a statement by me as Treasurer, that the Government would be supporting those amendments.
I thought it was important to update you what on the process is. This was anticipated yesterday, hence the request for advice from the ATO which meant the House didn't need to remain to consider that matter. Discussions relating to the Enterprise Tax Plan continue and they will continue until determination is made on those and there is nothing further to update you on that, so the purpose of me coming out here today was just to advise you of those procedural issues and we will come back to you a little later.
Thank you.