NO.064

TAX LEGISLATION TO BE CUT BY MORE THAN 4,100 PAGES

The Treasurer today introduced the Tax Laws Amendment (Repeal of Inoperative Provisions) Bill2006, which will repeal more than 4,100 pages from Australia’s tax legislation. This Bill is based on a draft the Treasurer released for public comment on 4 April 2006.

Inoperative provisions are those that no longer apply to taxpayers, either because they have no effect after a date in the past or because all the transactions or events they did affect have now concluded.

The Treasurer noted that the Bill also makes other improvements to the tax laws such as replacing multiple definitions of some terms with a single definition for each term. Those amendments pursue the sort of standardisation recently recommended by the Banks taskforce report Rethinking Regulation: Report of the Taskforce on Reducing Regulatory Burdens on Business.

The flow on effects of the repeal of inoperative provisions will provide further benefits for taxpayers and tax practitioners. The Commissioner of Taxation has advised that approximately 200public rulings, which contain references to provisions which are being repealed, will be either revised or withdrawn. The Commissioner is also working with tax professionals to improve the readability from the ATO’s legal database of other public rulings affected by the Bill.

The Treasurer said: “This Bill is an important part of the Government’s efforts to reduce the complexity of Australia’s tax laws. The Government will continue to look for opportunities to improve the tax laws in the future. For example, the Government will continue to rewrite parts of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 into the 1997 Act whenever those parts are under review.”

The Treasurer further said: “I expect the Bill to be passed later this year. This will allow for next year’s commercial reprints of the income tax law to reflect the repeal of the inoperative material.”

CANBERRA

Thursday, 22 June 2006

Contact: Renae Stoikos

(02) 6277 7340