Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I table a supplementary explanatory memorandum relating to the government amendments to be moved to this bill. The memorandum was circulated in the chamber earlier today. I seek leave to move government amendments (1) to (3) together.

Leave granted.

I move:

(1)    Clause 2, page 2 (table item 7), omit “9 to 11”, substitute “9 to 13”.

(2)    Page 38 (after line 20), at the end of the bill, add:

Schedule 12—Austudy rent assistance

Income Tax Assessment Act 1997

1 Section 52-15 (cell at table item 4, column headed “the supplementary amount is the total of:”)

2  Application

The amendment made by this Schedule applies to assessments for the 2007-08 income year and later income years.

(3)    Page 38 (after line 20), at the end of the bill, add:

Schedule 13—Carer adjustment payments

Income Tax Assessment Act 1997

1  Section 11-15 (table item headed “social security or like payments”)

After:

insert:

2  Section 53-10 (table item 1)

Repeal the item, substitute:

3  Application

The amendments made by this Schedule apply to assessments for the 2007-08 income year and later years.

These amendments add new schedules, 12 and 13, to the bill and update the commencement table to reflect these additions. New schedules 12 and 13 are identical to schedules 3 and 4, which were omitted from the Tax Laws Amendment (2008 Measures No. 3) Bill while that bill was in the House of Representatives. The amendments are necessary to ensure that certain measures which are of benefit to taxpayers are passed before the end of the income year. Schedule 12 exempts rent assistance paid to Austudy recipients from income tax. This will ensure consistency with the taxation treatment of rent assistance paid to Newstart allowance, youth allowance and Abstudy recipients. Rent assistance has been payable to Austudy recipients from 1 January 2008. The payment provides assistance with the living costs associated with full-time study and training.

Schedule 13 exempts the carer adjustment payment from income tax. This will ensure consistency with the taxation treatment of other one-off payments made to carers in previous years. The carer adjustment payment provides up to $10,000 in financial assistance to families with a child up to six years of age who has suffered a catastrophic event after 1 January 2007. It is designed to assist families adjust to the increased costs arising from a severe illness, medical condition or major disability as a result of a catastrophic event. I commend the amendments to the chamber.

Helen Coonan (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The opposition will be supporting new schedules 12 and 13 to this bill. For those of us who follow these things closely, it appears that these were schedules 3 and 4 of Tax Law Amendment (2008 Measures No. 3) Bill. A couple of those schedules of the bill—schedule 1 on shareholder and unit holder rights and schedule 2 on restriction of GST refunds and time limits for recovery and refund of indirect tax—will be referred to the Senate Standing Committee on Economics for inquiry. We of course recognise that the government may wish to expedite passage of these schedules, which are supported, and they do have some time critical aspects to them. Therefore they have been put in the No. 2 bill. We think that both of them are very sensible measures. The income tax treatment of rent assistance paid to Austudy recipients and income tax treatment of the carer adjustment payment have our full support.

Andrew Murray (WA, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I concur with the remarks of the shadow minister. These two schedules have been taken by agreement out of the one bill and put into this bill because they are time sensitive relative to the end of this financial year. Therefore, that is a very practical compromise and does not interfere with the coalition’s desire to send the other schedules of TLAB 3 across to the Senate committee for examination and report later on in this calendar year.

Exempting rent assistance paid to Austudy recipients from income tax is obviously very beneficial to those concerned and we support it. As a party we tend to be very sympathetic to students and have a long history of barracking for their needs, so that is welcome. The income tax treatment of the carer adjustment payment also falls into the same category of remarks. The needy group that is getting this assistance will be grateful. I will say though in passing that, in a policy sense, I really do dislike the lump sum payments approach adopted by both the previous government and the present government to carers and pensioners. I think they would be far better off with a permanent adjustment to their income levels through standard fortnightly or monthly payments, instead of the occasional largesse. But that is another topic for another day. I am really just putting that on the record yet again. The Democrats will support these amendments.

Question agreed to.

Bill, as amended, agreed to.

Bill reported with amendments; report adopted.