A quick look at what the 2019 Budget means for you
3 April 2019
The 2019 Budget has been announced, but what does it all mean for you or your business? Here is a quick and easy summary of the key points handed down in this year’s Budget. If you have a specific tax and business question, please speak with your MAS Tax Accountant for personalised advice.
What’s included:
- Workers
- Families
- Small Business Owners
- Commuters
- Regional Areas
- Household Costs
- Health
- University Students
- Job Seekers
- Seniors
- Security
- Tourism
- Immigration and Foreign Aid
- Environment
Workers:
– All taxpayers earning up to $126,000 a year will receive a tax cut.
– The highest tax cut, $1080 a year, will go to people who earn between $48,000 and $90,000 a year.
Families:
(1) Medicare
– The income threshold for paying the Medicare levy will be reduced, meaning that low-income taxpayers generally continue to be exempted from paying the Medicare levy.
The thresholds will be changed to:
Singles — from $21,980 to $22,398
Families — from $37,089 to $37,794
Single seniors and pensioners — from $34,758 to $35,418
Seniors and pensioners — from $48,385 to $49,304
Each dependent child-student — from $3,406 to $3,471
(2) School Funding
There will be increases school funding by 63 per cent over the next 10 years, from $19.9 billion in 2019 to $32.4 billion in 2029.
(3) Other
– About $328 million over four years to reduce domestic and family violence against women and children.
Small Business Owners:
– Tax rate cut from 27.5 per cent to 26 per cent next year, then 25 per cent in 2021.
– Instant asset write-off increased to $30,000, can now be used for multiple assets.
Potentially, if you’re a tradie, you could write off a new ute, and if you own a cafe, you can write off a new coffee machine.
– Extended to businesses with turnover of $50 million, up from $10 million.
– Extra funding for independent reviews of tax office disputes.
Commuters:
(1) Trains
– $2 billion to build Australia’s fastest train between Geelong and Melbourne.
– Funding of business cases for five other potential high speed rail projects.
– $500 million to provide better parking facilities at train stations.
These measures will aim to take tens of thousands of cars off Australia’s roads each day.
(2) Roads
– Quadrupling of the Urban Congestion Fund and billions of dollars to upgrade roads. It will focus on projects addressing congestion in Australia’s “worst affected” urban areas.
There are lots of spending projects to improve Australia’s roads. The most significant examples include, a billion for the Princes Highway, $1.6 billion to extend the M1 in NSW, $800 million for the Gateway Motorway in Queensland, $1.5 billion for the North-South Corridor in South Australia and $349 to upgrade the Tonkin Highway in WA.
There is also a significant Road Safety Package worth $2.2 billion, half of which will go to local councils to maintain and repair roads.
– A billion dollars will be invested in rural roads across Australia and upgrades key freight routes to connect the agriculture and resource sectors to urban markets.
Regional Areas:
– $6.3 billion to help struggling farmers.
That includes relatively large initiatives, such as $200 million to increase access to income support, and smaller ones, like a $2.5 million increase in funding to support farmers’ mental health and wellbeing.
– Creation of an Emergency Response Fund to prepare for and react to natural disasters.
– Another $300 million for farmers affected by the North Queensland floods.
– Regional Deals to focus on developing key regions in NSW, Victoria, QLD, and the NT
Household Costs:
– Veterans, carers, single parents, aged pensioners and people receiving the disability support pension to get a one-off Energy Assistance Payment to help with their next energy bill.
– Singles would get $75 and eligible couples would get $125 paid before the end of the current financial year.
Health:
– Cancer services to get $70.8 million over the next seven years including for the establishment of cancer treatment centres in regional Australia for radiation therapy.
– Spending increase patient care, with 41 extra breast care nurses and 34 prostate cancer nurses.
– Out-of-pocket costs for scans such as ultrasounds and x-rays will be reduced.
– The costs of some medications will be reduced.
– Approximately $229.9 million over seven years will be put towards mental health services.
University Students:
– Scholarships to encourage international and local students to study at regional university campuses.
– New underground physics lab at the University of Melbourne.
– $525 million skills package for vocational education and training.
Job Seekers:
– Funding for 80,000 new apprenticeships in areas with skills shortages.
– Apprentice incentive payments doubled to $8000, apprentices to receive $2000.
– Jobseekers will be encouraged to take up fruit picking in regional areas.
– Ten “training hubs” to be set up in high youth unemployment areas.
– The cashless welfare card is being expanded to cover more than 35,000 people
Seniors:
– Those aged 65 and 66 will be able to put extra money into their super accounts even if they are not working.
– Boost to aged care regulation of $38.4 million over five years for an information sharing system in the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission.
– $8.4 million to introduce mandatory reporting of things like pressure sores, weight loss and falls and fractures
Security:
– Intelligence agency ASIO and the Federal Police are set to receive more than $500 million in funding over the next five years.
– Enhancements for critical capabilities and operations at the Federal Police, including counter-terrorism activities.
– $34.8 million over four years to strengthen our cyber security and protect against hackers
Tourism:
– $216 million to upgrade the visitor facilities at Kakadu National Park, that means things like walking tracks, viewing platforms and wi-fi services.
– It is also splashing $184 million on supporting tourism along the Great Ocean Rd and in Geelong.
Immigration and Foreign Aid:
– The permanent migration cap will be cut from 190,000 to 160,000 a year. The government says the move will reduce pressure on cities and give infrastructure a chance to catch-up.
– Two new visa classes be introduced to encourage skilled workers to settle in regional areas, $64 million will be spent on “social cohesion measures” to help migrants integrate, $94 million will go towards regional scholarships, and $23.4 million will create a Centre for Population to develop population policy.
– Foreign aid spending will be held at $4 billion a year before increasing to $4.1 billion in 2022-23 when indexation recommences
Environment:
– The government will address climate change and meet its 2030 carbon emissions target through a $3.5 billion package delivered over the next 15 years.
– Threatened species protection will get $100 million over four years with the establishment of an Environment Restoration Fund.
For more information or to speak with one of our Accountants, please contact us below or call us on 1300 627 829
Source: News.com.au – What the 2019 federal Budget means for you
