Bigger Tax Refunds This Year (The Lamington Offset)

The Low and Middle Income Tax Offset (LMITO), which was supposed to end in 2020, will instead be increased by $420 for the 2021/22 tax year, taking the maximum amount from $1,080 to $1,500. The offset will then be ended as previously planned and will not be available in future years.

Temporary Fuel Price Cut

The fuel tax excise will be lowered from $0.44/L to $0.22/L from midnight tonight for the next six months.

Extra Payment For Welfare Recipients

Pensioners, carers, veterans, job seekers and other eligible concession card holders, plus some self-funded retirees, will receive a one-off payment of $250.

Small Business Tax Boosts For Technology and Training

From 29 March 2022, small businesses can claim a tax deduction of 120% of the amount spent on eligible technology and training.

The Technology Investment Boost allows businesses to claim the bonus 20% deduction for the cost of portable payment devices, cyber security systems, cloud computing, e-invoicing and web design. An annual cap of $100,000 will apply to eligible technology expenditure, with the initiative set to last until 30 June 2023.

The Skills and Training Boost allows businesses to claim the bonus 20% deduction for the cost of training staff, so long as it is run by an external education provider registered in Australia. The courses can be provided in person (only in Australia) or online and there’s no limit on spending, but in-house and on-the-job training are not eligible, nor is money spent training people who are not employees of the business. The boost will last until 30 June 2024.

Parental Leave

The two currently separate payments (2 weeks of "Dad and Partner Pay" and 18 weeks of "Parental Leave Pay") will be combined into a single payment, meaning parents can choose to split the leave in whatever way they’d like. It also means that single parents will now be entitled to the full 20 weeks. The household income test to access parental leave will be adjusted to $350,000 per year.

Apprentices

The current Boosting Apprenticeship Commencement Scheme will end on 30 June, replaced by a new Australian Apprenticeships Incentive Program. It will offer lower wage subsidies — 10% for first and second-year apprentices and 5% for third-years — and it's restricted to a list of "priority" occupations, which hasn’t been made available yet. If you're hiring someone for a "non-priority" occupation, you can get a one-off payment of $3,500.

In good news, apprentices on the priority list will get $5,000 in direct cash payments over their first two years.

From July 2024, the wage subsidies will be scrapped and replaced with a $4,000 hiring incentive for employers and $3,000 for apprentices, but only if they're on the priority list. 

Stage 3 Tax Cuts

Stage 3 of the income tax cuts is still on the cards for the 2024/25 financial year, meaning around 12 million taxpayers will pay lower taxes. The tax cuts are worth up to $2,565 per individual, but will only benefit higher income earners.

Childcare Subsidy

Childcare subsidy increases will be brought forward from 1 July 2022 to 7 March 2022, and the annual cap will be removed.

Health Measures

$58 million will be spent over the next four years toward helping women with endometriosis.

Trodelvy, a medication used to treat a rare form of breast cancer, was added to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

Genetic testing for a number of conditions for couples who are planning to get pregnant will become free to access.

Tests for conditions including cystic fibrosis, spinal muscular atrophy and fragile X syndrome will be free under Medicare (in most circumstances) from November 2023.

Half a billion dollars will be invested over the next five years to pay for the next stage of the National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Plan, including $42.3 million over four years for Lifeline and $14.8 million over five years for Headspace.

Australians on a mental health plan will again receive an additional 10 partially-Medicare subsidised visits to a psychologist, a measure first announced in the coronavirus pandemic.

There's also extra mental health support for people in flood-affected regions.

Domestic Violence

$1.3 billion in funding will be provided over the next six years for a broad range of measures and programs identified in the National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children.

Climate Change

Carbon farming income can be treated like other primary production income for tax purposes in future, meaning farmers who make money by selling carbon credits can receive the same tax treatment and concessions as other forms of farming.

The $250 million Recycling Modernisation Fund, which is designed to find new and innovative ways to make recycling more efficient, includes $60 million to fund better technology to recycle soft plastics like bread bags and chip packets. It’s hoped this will help the government reach its target of having 70% of plastic packaging in Australia recycled or composted by 2025.

As previously announced by the government, there’s $1 billion set aside for the Great Barrier Reef. The majority of the funding will go toward improving water quality, with the rest set aside for reef management and research. The money will be spent over nine years and administered through the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment along with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, and delivered through local communities, industries and traditional owners.

Defence

Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) will receive $9.9 billion over the next 10 years for the REDSPICE (Resilience, Effects, Defence, Space, Intelligence, Cyber and Enablers) package. It will mean an extra 1,900 jobs created at ASD, including positions such as data analysts, computer programmers, and software engineers.

In the budget, the government makes it clear the investment is to better equip Australia to defend itself and some of our critical infrastructure from cyber attacks and counteract them. The government has warned about the possibility of cyber attacks from both China and Russia, going so far as to urge businesses to update their systems to better defend against any future attacks.