“The Minister for Revenue, Assistant Treasurer Peter Dutton has in fact taken a commercial approach to this issue and treated it in the same way as an ordinary bank account.”

A requirement on forming a tax consolidated group is that the cost base of all assets, except monetary assets, are required to be reset.  Investments in cash management trusts were not considered to be...

“An opportunity has been missed to substantially reform the central plank of Government innovation policy which is almost 21 years old,” said Sergio Duchini, Deloitte National R&D Tax Incentives Leader.

“The reform to the 175% incremental concession announced on 1 May 2007 is to be welcomed as are the range of specific grants for the Intermediary Access Program and Commercial Ready Plus program.

“However, they do not go far enough to bring us into line with global best practice.

“Although not the only factor,...

“With large surpluses increasingly funded by booming company tax collections the Treasurer has missed a golden opportunity to keep Australian company tax rates competitive,” said Les Szekely, Director Deloitte Growth Solutions.

“The UK recently dropped its company tax rate to 28%, Singapore to 18%, Ireland to 12.5% and Eastern Europe is moving towards 15%.

“Those few countries with nominal company tax rates of 30% or more, frequently have lower effective rates due to a range of tax...

The Treasurer has announced that, with effect from 1 July 2007, taxation changes will be made to allow one spouse in a marriage breakdown to transfer their entire in specie interest in a small superannuation fund to another complying superannuation fund without an immediate capital gains event.

Randall said, “The impact of the Treasurer’s announcement will be to keep separating couples investing together...

“The online pre-filled tax returns miss the opportunity to remove the need for individuals to prepare and lodge their personal income tax returns. In the electronic age where the Australian Tax Office has the income information of all tax payers, the annual tax return could be abolished.

“Many other countries such as the UK, have abolished individual tax returns. Australia should further simplify its processes and give taxpayers the opportunity to not lodge a tax...

“With GDP expected to grow at a healthy 3.75% there is an obvious increasing burden of taxation being paid by corporate Australia,” said Mike De Palo, Partner Deloitte Tax Services.

“While corporates may not have a vote in the pending election they will vote on where they commit their capital. The Government should not take the corporate sector for granted.

“With increasing globalisation an internationally competitive corporate tax regime is paramount for attracting...

“We’re ignoring the fact that business wants to be part of the child care solution,” Ms Bolt said.

“The Government has again failed to consider the ways in which business can work in partnership with Government to meet Australia’s child care needs.

“Through an FBT exemption, employers can provide employees with sponsored child care or the opportunity for employees to salary sacrifice...

“Previous changes prevented companies from carrying forward tax losses if they had a majority change of ownership, and had a turnover in excess of $100 million, Mr Ward said.

“The change means companies who have been prevented from using their tax losses in earlier years will be able to seek amendments to their tax returns, retrospective back to 1 July 2005.

It will particularly benefit companies, with high start-up losses, such as...

“The concern of business was that the tax treatment of finance leases would have become embroiled in the current reforms of the taxation of financial arrangements. This would have added significantly to the complexity of the changes in this area and delayed it,’ he said.”

“It is also pleasing that the Government has also announced that the long awaited review of the taxation of finance leases will not proceed.”

NB:...

“The current shortages of professional, skilled as well as unskilled and ancillary services labour across the resources sector nationally have not been comprehensively dealt with by the measures announced in the Budget. Nor have the soft or hard infrastructure issues impacting productive capacity been addressed in any significant way.

“The $1000 incentive for first and second year...