GST Point-in-Time Service Updates

The GST Point-in-Time Service has been updated to include the Treasury Laws Amendment (Junior Minerals Exploration Incentive) Act 2018 (Cth) (Act 15 of 2018), the Treasury Laws Amendment (2018 Measures No. 1) Act 2018 (Cth) (Act 23 of 2018), the Intelligence Services Amendment (Establishment of the Australian Signals Directorate) Act 2018 (Cth) (Act 25 of 2018) and the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Legislation (Defence Force) Consequential Amendment Regulations 2018 (Cth).

Act 15 of 2018

This Act amends the tax law to replace the former Exploration Development Incentive (EDI) with the Junior Minerals Exploration Incentive (JMEI). Like the EDI, the JMEI provides a tax incentive to invest in small minerals exploration companies undertaking greenfields minerals exploration in Australia. Australian resident investors of these companies receive a tax incentive where the companies choose to give up a portion of their tax losses relating to their exploration expenditure in an income year.
Unlike the EDI, under the JMEI:

• eligibility for the incentive is limited to investors that purchase newly issued shares; and
• the incentive is allocated between eligible exploration companies on a first come, first served process (subject to integrity requirements).

Act 23 of 2018

Schedule 1 to this Act makes a number of regulatory improvements to Treasury portfolio laws. The regulatory improvements include:

• amending the superannuation laws to enable the Commissioner to pay certain superannuation amounts directly to individuals with a terminal medical condition;
• amending the Corporations Act 2001 to modify the notification and reporting obligations applying to certain corporations that have property in receivership or property in respect of which a controller is acting; and
• repealing several inoperative Acts as well as amending the taxation law to remove a number of inoperative or spent provisions.

Schedule 2 to this Act amends the ITAA 1997, the SLAA 2012 and the TLAA 2010 to extend the tax relief for merging superannuation funds until 1 July 2020.

Schedule 3 to this Act amends the APRA Act to enable the Government to recover the ongoing cost of the governance of the superannuation transaction network from the superannuation supervisory levy.

Schedule 4 to this Act transfers the regulator role for early release of superannuation benefits on compassionate grounds from the Chief Executive Medicare (Department of Human Services) to the Commissioner of Taxation (Australian Taxation Office). 

Schedule 5 to this Act amends the TAA 1953, ITAA 1997 and the GST Act to require purchasers of new residential premises and new subdivisions of potential residential land to make a payment of part of the purchase price to the ATO.

Act 25 of 2018

The Act implements the recommendations of the 2017 Independent Intelligence Review to establish the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) as an independent statutory agency within the Defence portfolio reporting directly to the Minister for Defence, as endorsed by Government. The Act also includes a number of other related amendments following the establishment of ASD.  

Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Legislation (Defence Force) Consequential Amendment Regulations 2018

These regulations amend various Commonwealth Regulations consequential upon the enactment of the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation (Defence-related Claims) Act 1988.    

The amendments made by the Acts and the Regulation have been updated in the Point-in-Time GST Service current to 24 May 2018. (NB: Subscription required).

If you are not already a subscriber to this or other Point-in-Time Services then please contact us to find out more or to take a free trial.