Among the budget commitments is deregulation for the oil and gas industry, reducing taxes paid even further, along with $50 million to remove barriers to project approval.
These include:
– removing all renewal requirements for excise and excise-equivalent customs goods licences; removing licence fees; enabling the ATO and ABF to issue entity-level licences in addition to site-level licences; and providing blanket permission to move goods between sites controlled by licensed businesses
– removing onshore producers of crude oil and condensate from the excise system until and unless they exceed the relevant production threshold to be liable for excise payments
– extending the time limit to apply for a refund of excise overpayments from 12 months to 4 years after payment, to align with refunds of customs duty
– creating a public register of excise and excise-equivalent customs goods licences administered by the ATO.
• amend the excise and excise-equivalent customs duty regime for fuel by:
– introducing a refund provision, similar to that in the excise law, for excise-equivalent customs duty on petroleum-based oils used in the further manufacture of petroleum lubricants, ending double taxation of these oils
– removing the requirement to pay and then claim Fuel Tax Credits in respect of excise or excise-equivalent customs duty on fuels used in domestic commercial shipping (‘bunker fuels’), aligning their treatment with the duty-free treatment of bunker fuels for international voyages
The additional $50.3 million is to “accelerate priority gas infrastructure projects towards final investment decision”.
Callum Foote was a reporter for Michael West Media for four years.