Greens May Hold Sway Over Australian Mining Tax

by Mary Swire, Tax-News.com, Hong Kong

22 July 2010

Australia’s Green party has said that it would look to increasing the revenue collected from the proposed minerals resource rent tax (MRRT), if it manages to hold the balance of power after the August 21 election.

Earlier this month, and before the new Prime Minister Julia Gillard called the election, the Australian government agreed with the larger mining companies operating in the country to replace a 40% resource super profits tax (RSPT) with a less-onerous 30% MRRT. The new tax would apply only to iron ore, coal, oil and gas projects, and the number of companies affected would reduce from 2,500 to around 320.

While the MRRT is still expected to generate only AUD1.5bn (USD1.25bn) less than the AUD12bn in additional tax revenue expected from the RSPT over the two fiscal years after its introduction in July 2012, the reduced revenue has meant that the government has had to cancel a part of the tax reforms planned to be financed from the new tax.

In that respect, it decided that, while the company tax rate would continue to be cut from the present 30% to 29% from 2013-14, it could not be further reduced to 28% in the following year, as previously planned.

Green party leader, Bob Brown, has now said that, if his party held the balance of power after the election – which could be possible, particularly in the Senate – he will try to reverse a large part of the reduced revenue from the MRRT. The increased tax collected should, he suggested, be used to reinstate the additional 1% company tax break, particularly for small businesses.

Furthermore, the Green party has stated that the party would also look to amend the MRRT to include uranium mining, so that revenue could be taken from the expected increased production of uranium from already-planned projects.

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