Irish Taxation Institute: Educating, Developing and Representing

Final Report of Australia's Future Tax System Review Team (the Henry Report)

03 May 2010

The Australian Government officially released the final report of the Australia's Future Tax System review team (the Henry Report as it is known) together with the Government's initial response on 2 May 2010. 

The Report contains recommendations to reform Australia's tax system, however the Government has initially focused on recommendations for the resources sector and superannuation. The following will also be implemented:

• The company tax rate is also to be reduced to 28% (small businesses will benefit from the reduced rate from 2012-13 but it will be phased in for other companies i.e. 29% for 2013-14 and 28% from 2014-15).
• Other benefits for small business including the ability to immediately write-off assets valued at under $5,000 (currently $1,000) and all other assets (except buildings) to be written off in a single depreciation pool at a rate of 30% (from 1 July 2012).

Some recommendations were specifically rejected by the Australian Government including; removing the CGT exemption for pre-CGT assets, reducing indexation of the age pension, introducing a bequests tax and removing the luxury car tax.

Other recommendations were neither adopted nor rejected on the basis that they are not current government policy and will be debated further in the coming years. 

The Henry Report is available to download by clicking here.

The Australian Government's initial response - called 'Stronger-Fairer-Simpler, A Tax Plan for Reform' is available here.