Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Superannuation, Financial Services and Financial Technology) Share this | Hansard source

The first of these amendments extends the time frame on schedule 5 for the disclosure of business tax debt information from 21 to 28 days. That is something the government is comfortable with. The second amendment brings forward the start date of schedule 7, the salary sacrifice integrity measures, to 1 January 2020. Again, may I reiterate Senator McAllister's position of gratitude for the constructive engagement between the opposition and the minister's office on this.

The government has agreed to support the opposition's amendments to schedule 5. They were entirely expected. Those amendments extend the time frame for the disclosure for business tax debt from 21 to 28 days. We think that is reasonable, as the government has previously stated. This is, we believe, a very important measure that is designed to help businesses and lenders who are considering providing credit to another business. Without this measure in place, these businesses would have no way to know about a business's debt with the ATO until court action is taken against that business. By that point, of course, they may have already provided the credit. Extensions to this time frame do increase the risk that businesses, including small businesses, may provide credit to a borrower with large outstanding debts, as they would have no way to know about a business's debt with the ATO until court action is taken against the business. Of course, if the credit has already been provided, it is too late by then.

The government doesn't support any further extension to the time frame for this measure. However, the government has agreed to support the opposition's amendment to the start date for schedule 7 of the Treasury Laws Amendment (2019 Tax Integrity and Other Measures No. 1) Bill 2019 from the original start date of 1 July 2020 to 1 January 2020. We believe this is an important measure. The government is committed to preventing employers from using their employees' salary sacrifice superannuation contributions to reduce their own superannuation contribution obligations and to ensuring that the superannuation guarantee is paid on the pre-salary-sacrifice base. The government has already introduced a suite of superannuation guarantee integrity reforms to crack down on employers who are doing the wrong thing by employees, but we recognise that it is important to give small business employers the opportunity to comply with the law prior to imposing significant penalties upon them. A start date of 1 January 2020 for this measure does, we believe, provide sufficient time for industry to prepare for the measure, including by allowing payroll software providers time to make any required system changes to their software. Employers have time, then, to make sure that they are using this updated version of their payroll software and also time for the very important conversations to be had between employers and employees to amend and update any individual salary sacrifice agreements to ensure compliance with this measure.