Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

but it has not raised much tax over the years. Obviously the government was upset about the fact that Greece won the international award for introducing taxes that raise very little money, so they came up with a new version of the mining tax! Maybe that is how the Treasurer got his bouquet as the world's best treasurer—he should have a post-politics career in tax design!

We are helping the government to improve the budget bottom line by identifying this as another area that is being funded by the failed mining tax—or isn't being funded, as is really the case. Therefore, we will not support this initiative. We will be moving an amendment to excise this part of the bill so that we can separately vote on it, and we hope that the government gives us the opportunity to do just that.

Schedule 4 of the bill seeks to extend the interim streaming rules for managed investment trusts until the commencement of the new tax system for MITs. The interim rules enable the streaming of capital gains and franked dividends to beneficiaries, subject to relevant integrity provisions, until the new MIT regime commences. The commencement of the new MIT regime has been deferred by two years to 1 July 2014, to coincide with the intended commencement of rewritten MIT and other trusts provisions in the income tax acts.

Originally these interim streaming rules for MITs were to apply from 1 July 2012, but that was extended by two years to 1 July 2014, because the provisions for the new regime were not ready in time—what a surprise! This extension of the transition period is a direct consequence of delays in progressing other announced and anticipated changes in the tax law. It reflects a growing backlog of changes to the tax law which have been announced but not enacted. This process has not been helped by the fact that the Assistant Treasurer's portfolio has seen five different assistant treasurers under Labor in five years. That is a pretty good record! How do those members on the back bench feel? They did not get a guernsey. The member for Canberra over there—is it Canberra?

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