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Tax Policy and Advocacy

Our Tax Policy and Advocacy team support you with knowledge, experience and a leading voice in the tax profession.

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Advocacy Tracker

Ongoing issues

Treasury has released for consultation a paper seeking feedback on the framing of the draft objective of superannuation, including the benefits of the objective and its practical application. Legislating an objective for superannuation is intended to provide confidence to policy makers, regulators, industry and the community. Future changes to superannuation would also need to be aligned with the proposed objective clause.

The consultation concludes on Friday 31 March 2023. We are currently seeking feedback from members on your views regarding this consultation. To enable The Tax Institute to collate member feedback, if you have feedback to share, please email your response by COB on Friday 24 March 2023 to taxpolicy@taxinstitute.com.au.

The ATO has released for consultation draft legislative instrument LI 2023/D2 and accompanying explanatory statement. The draft legislative instrument outlines how information regarding registrable interests recorded on the Register of Foreign Ownership of Australian Assets must be given, including what information must be provided to accompany a register notice. It also describes how the Registrar may store and correct information, and that the Registrar will generally communicate electronically with interested parties.

The consultation concludes on Friday 24 March 2023. We are currently seeking feedback from members on your views regarding this consultation. To enable The Tax Institute to collate member feedback, if you have feedback to share, please email your response by COB on Friday 17 March 2023 to taxpolicy@taxinstitute.com.au

The ATO has released for consultation several draft legislative instruments and accompanying explanatory statements that specify the records the Commissioner will accept as an alternative to an employee declaration in respect of an expense payment fringe benefit that an employer would otherwise be required to provide under the Fringe Benefits Tax Assessment Act 1986. The relevant draft legislative instruments are listed below:

l   LI 2023/D3: Fringe Benefits Tax Assessment (Adequate Alternative Records – Overseas Employment Holiday Transport) Determination 2023

l   LI 2023/D4: Fringe Benefits Tax Assessment (Adequate Alternative Records – Car Travel to Employment Interview or Selection Test) Determination 2023

l   LI 2023/D5: Fringe Benefits Tax Assessment (Adequate Alternative Records – Remote Area Holiday Transport) Determination 2023

l   LI 2023/D6: Fringe Benefits Tax Assessment (Adequate Alternative Records – Car Travel to Certain Work-Related Activities) Determination 2023.

The consultation for these concludes on Friday 17 March 2023. We are currently seeking feedback from members on your views regarding this consultation. To enable The Tax Institute to collate member feedback, if you have feedback to share, please email your response by COB on Friday 10 March 2023 to taxpolicy@taxinstitute.com.au.

The Senate has established a committee to inquire into and report on the cost of living in Australia. The Committee is currently undertaking a consultation in this regard. The consultation will focus on:

  • the cost of living pressures facing Australians;
  • the Government’s fiscal policy response to the cost of living;
  • ways to ease the cost of living pressures through the tax and transfer system;
  • measures to ease the cost of living through the provision of Government services; and
  • any other related matter.

The consultation concludes on Friday 10 March 2023. The Tax Institute is working with our National Technical Committees to prepare a submission that highlights the key areas where our taxation and superannuation systems can help Australians with the rising cost of living. The submission will be available on our website when finalised.

Following a number of members raising the issue of the removal of paper activity statements with us, The Tax Institute escalated the matter to the ATO in late 2020.

This has resulted in a series of regular meetings to discuss the impact of the ATO’s decision to remove paper quarterly PAYG and GST instalment notices and the design of an interim solution which involves the reinstatement of paper activity statements from the March 2021 quarter.

We continue to work with the ATO in the design of a permanent solution.