Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I just have to explain to Senator Carr that there is currently a refundable tax offset in the law for research and development expenses for small companies. We consider the risk to revenue, as I mentioned to you before. That is now talking about the Greens amendment, and additional compliance costs to companies are not appropriate. But the important point here is that the tax deduction that Senator Carr is talking about is, in effect, a tax deduction of 140 per cent, which includes the 40 per cent tax offset because 100 per cent of the expenditure is deductible. What we are saying is that it should be 133 per cent—that is, 100 per cent of the expenditure and also the 30 per cent effectively related to the company tax rate. Senator Carr is still arguing against the policies adopted by the former Gillard Labor government, in which he was a minister, which initiated and banked the savings measure that we are currently dealing with.