Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities, Carers and the Voluntary Sector) Share this | Hansard source

Schedule 3 relates to luxury car leases and rewrites the remaining schedule 2E to the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 into the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997. Schedule 2E ensures that a lessor and a lessee of a luxury car get the same income tax treatment they would have got had the lessor sold the car to the lessee and lent the lessee the money for the purchase. It is not something I am personally acquainted with or have to do myself, I must say.

Schedule 4 is on farm management deposits. It rewrites the remaining schedule 2G to the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 into the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997. This schedule 2G establishes the Farm Management Deposit Scheme that allows eligible primary producers to set aside pre-tax income in profitable years for subsequent withdrawal in low-income years.

The last schedule, schedule 5, relates to general insurance and rewrites the remaining schedule 2J to the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 into the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997. Schedule 2J ensures that general insurance companies are taxed on premium income received and can deduct liabilities for outstanding claims over the period of risk under the policies to which the income and deductions relate.

As I stated at the outset, this bill is not about policy change; it is a rewrite. It is about rewriting the archaic and often difficult to interpret rules from the 1936 act into the 1997 plain English act. The coalition supports this bill.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.