27 March 2025 Australia's 2025-26 Federal Budget
On 25 March 2025, Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers handed down his fourth budget, being the 2025-26 Federal Budget. This Tax Alert focuses on the key announced tax measures that affect business tax planning and compliance processes and business incentives. The broader economic and policy issues in the 2025-26 Federal Budget are available on the EY Australia website (link here). Last year's budget surplus of AU$15.8b (FY 2023-24) has now become a forecast deficit of AU$27.6b for this current year (FY 2024-25), increasing to an AU$42b deficit next financial year (FY 2026-27). The Budget forecasts real spending growth of 6% this year, far exceeding economic growth, which has been downgraded from 1.75% to 1.5% of gross domestic product (GDP). It also assumes spending growth will drop to 3% next year and 0.5% the year after, a forecast that seems optimistic. Gross government debt is now forecast to peak at 37% (AU$1.2t) of GDP, up from 35% in last year's budget. Given that Australia is only a few weeks away from an election, there are typical pre-election budget sweeteners to be found, this year predominantly in the form of AU$17b worth of personal tax cuts — of up to AU$268 in 2026-27 and up to AU$536 in 2027-28 on an individual basis, relative to 2024-25. When the Treasurer delivered last year's Budget in May 2024, the budget aimed to do three things: (1) prioritize fiscal discipline to ensure inflation remains under control; (2) bring the structural budget closer to balance; and (3) accelerate the pace of policy reform, including tax reform, to help boost our failing productivity. (See EY Global Tax Alert, Australia delivers 2024-25 Federal Budget, dated 16 May 2024.) These three goals have not been completely achieved. On the tax front, the new Budget leaves in place a uncompetitive corporate tax rate of 30% and a personal income tax system with a high top marginal tax rate (with Medicare levy) of 47% that cuts in at a low-dollar threshold by Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) standards. This results in a very high proportion of Australia's tax revenues coming from income taxes, as opposed to consumption taxes, which therefore results in disincentives to productivity enhancing work and investments. The largest revenue raising measure in the new Budget, raising some AU$3b over the forecast period, is additional funding of approximately AU$1b to the ATO to pursue revenue-raising compliance activities, and thus maximize the collection of corporate and personal income tax. Despite Australia's need for structural fiscal reform, political obstacles seem to have prevented it thus far. The new Budget continues the government's AU$22.7b agenda to help Australians benefit from the global shift to cleaner, cheaper energy and to secure Australia's position in a changing global economic and strategic environment. This includes AU$3.2b of additional funding to invest in the future of Australia's metals industry:
The budget also reaffirms the government's commitment to the previously funded initiatives, including:
The government will strengthen the sanctions available to the Tax Practitioners Board (TPB), modernize the registration framework for tax practitioners and provide funding to the TPB to undertake additional compliance targeting high-risk tax practitioners over four years from 1 July 2025. This measure forms part of the government's response to a recent leak of confidential government tax information and implements recommendations from the 2019 Independent Review of the TPB; the government will consult on the implementation details of the measure. The measure is estimated to increase receipts by AU$47m and increase payments by AU$27.4m over five years from 2024-25. The government is providing funding to the ATO to extend and expand tax compliance activities. Cumulatively, this will cost AU$999m over four years from 2025-26, but will raise an additional AU$3.2b over five years from 2024-25. The programs covered are:
The government has announced that they will deliver new tax cuts to taxpayers from 1 July 2026. This measure is estimated to decrease receipts by AU$17.1b over three years from 2026-27. These adjustments follow the government's previously legislated tax cuts, which took effect from 1 July 2024.
The government announced a deferral of the proposed extension of the 10% Clean Building managed investment trusts (MIT) withholding tax concession to cover data centers and warehouses where construction commences after 9 May 2023, originally announced in the 2023-24 Budget, from 1 July 2025 to the first 1 January, 1 April, 1 July or 1 October after the Act receives Royal Assent. There is no quantifiable cost to the revenue from the deferral. The government previously announced that it will amend the income tax laws to confirm that MITs ultimately wholly owned by widely held foreign funds (e.g., foreign pension funds) can continue to access concessional withholding tax rates in Australia. The announcement followed the issuance of taxpayer alert TA 2025/1, which highlighted the ATO's concerns with restructures of an existing inward investment structure to access the MIT withholding regime. However, TA 2025/1 also included a statement that the general anti-avoidance rules in Part IVA of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 might potentially apply to MITs originally established as MITs indirectly wholly owned by a single foreign entity. The amendments will not affect the ATO's power to apply Part IVA where noncommercial restructures are undertaken to inappropriately access the MIT regime. The measure will apply to fund payments from 13 March 2025, and there is no quantifiable cost to the revenue. The government announced a deferral of the proposed amendments to the foreign-resident capital gains tax (CGT) regime announced in the 2024-25 Budget. It is proposed to clarify and broaden the types of assets on which CGT will apply for foreign residents, to amend the point-in-time principal-asset test to a 365-day testing period and to require additional ATO notifications where foreign residents dispose of shares and other membership interests exceeding AU$20m in value. The application date will be changed from CGT events that occur on or after 1 July 2025 to events that occur from the later of 1 October 2025 or the first 1 January, 1 April, 1 July or 1 October after the Act receives Royal Assent. The deferral is estimated to decrease receipts by AU$50m in 2025-26, while the original measure was estimated to increase receipts by AU$600m over the five years from 2023-24. As previously announced, the government will ban foreign persons (including temporary residents and foreign-owned companies) from purchasing established dwellings for two years from 1 April 2025, unless an exception applies. Exceptions include investments that significantly increase housing supply or support the availability of housing on a commercial scale, and purchases by foreign-owned companies to provide housing for workers in certain circumstances. Additional funding will be provided to the ATO, and Treasury to enforce the ban and implement an audit program to enhance the compliance approach to target land banking by foreign investors, to ensure they comply with requirements to put vacant land to use for residential and commercial developments within reasonable timeframes. The government previously announced that it would freeze the excise tax on draught beer, for two years, starting from the next indexation date of August 2025 (indexation is currently applied twice a year). The brewers and distillers cap for full remission of any excise paid will also be increased from AU$350,000 to AU$400,000 per year for all eligible manufacturers and the Wine Equalisation Tax producer rebate cap will be increased to AU$400,000, from 1 July 2026. The government will consult with this sector regarding the implementation of this measure. The government has not frozen the excise on spirits. This measure is estimated to cost AU$165m over the 4 years from 2025-26. Note that a number of tax-related government announcements, made over the past three years in Budgets and Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook statements (MYEFOs), have yet to be enacted. Some measures are in Bills before Parliament, which if not passed before the Federal Election is called will lapse, while many others are yet to be developed. Key measures include the following.
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