Senator the Hon Mathias Cormann

The Morrison Government is building a better tax system that rewards hard-working Australians and empowers small and medium-sized businesses to invest, grow and create more jobs.

As part of our plan for a stronger economy, we will provide tax relief to Australian taxpayers with immediate relief for low- and middle-income earners.

The Government will provide additional tax relief to hard-working Australians by more than doubling the low and middle income tax offset. Low- and middle-income earners will receive a benefit of up to $1,080 for low- and middle-income earners to support consumption growth and ease cost of living pressures. That’s up to $2,160 for a dual income family. Taxpayers will be able to access the offset after they lodge their end of year tax returns from 1 July 2019, which is in just 13 weeks’ time.

In 2022-23, we will lock in the benefits of low- and middle-income tax relief by increasing the top threshold of the 19 per cent tax bracket from $41,000 to $45,000 and by increasing the low income tax offset from $645 to $700.

And in 2024-25, the Government will reduce the 32.5 per cent tax rate to 30 per cent. This will be accompanied by the abolition of the 37 per cent tax bracket, which we have already legislated. This will provide permanently lower taxes and improve incentives for Australian taxpayers. 

In 2024-25, 13.3 million taxpayers are projected to benefit from tax relief provided by this Government. It will mean 94 per cent of taxpayers are projected to pay a marginal tax rate of no more than 30 per cent in 2024-25. 

We are also delivering additional tax relief for around 3.4 million small and medium-sized businesses to help them reinvest in their business, create jobs and grow.

In this year’s Budget we are increasing the instant asset write-off threshold to $30,000 and expanding access to medium-sized businesses with an annual turnover of less than $50 million. These changes will apply from 7:30pm (AEDT) on 2 April 2019 to 30 June 2020.

Around 22,000 additional businesses employing around 1.7 million workers will now be eligible to access the instant asset write-off. More than 350,000 businesses have already taken advantage of the instant asset write-off.

The Government is continuing to strengthen its efforts to maintain the integrity of Australia’s tax system by making sure multinationals pay their fair share of tax on their Australian profits. 

In particular, the Government is extending funding for the ATO’s Tax Avoidance Taskforce until 30 June 2023. The extension is expected to raise a further $4.6 billion in liabilities over the next four years.

This is in addition to the $12.9 billion in tax liabilities the Government’s multinational tax avoidance initiatives have helped raise since July 2016.