House debates Tax Laws Amendment (2007 Measures No. 4) Bill 2007

Consideration in Detail

Monday, 13 August 2007 House of Representatives

Chris Bowen

Chris Bowen Prospect, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer

7:36 pm

I move:

Schedule 8, page 120 (line 2) to page 128 (line 7), omit the schedule.

As I said during my remarks in the second reading debate on the Tax Laws Amendment (2007 Measures No. 4) Bill 2007, this is a matter of priorities. The Labor Party does not regard it as a priority to simplify the operation of family trusts in this country. The Labor Party does not regard it as a priority to expand the definition of family member to include lineal descendants of nieces and nephews.

As the member for Rankin said, and as I said in my second reading remarks, we are not talking about small amounts of money—$8 million a year or $34 million over the forward estimates is a substantial amount of money. For example, our policy of cutting the withholding tax rate to 15 per cent as a flat and final rate is costed by us at $15 million a year. So you can do substantial reform with small amounts of money. However, we do not regard this as a priority. We think there are better ways of spending that money and we will be advocating that this not be proceeded with and that the $8 million a year or $34 million over the forward estimates should be spent elsewhere. On that basis I commend the amendment to the House.

Question negatived.

Bill agreed to.

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