As announced in the May 2008 Federal Budget, from 1st July 2009 income tests used to determine eligibility for a range of government financial benefits will change.  From this date, salary sacrified contributions to superannuation will be counted as income for the following:

• Family assistance
• Child support
• Eligibility for the superannuation co-contribution
• Various tax offsets:  and
• Medicare levy surcharge

The Education Tax Refund (ETR) is a new government initiative to help with the cost of educating primary and secondary school children. It means eligible parents, carers, legal guardians and independent students could get 50% back on some education expenses. This includes items like computers, educational software, textbooks and stationery.

A trust is a relationship where a trustee (an individual or a company) carries on a business for the benefit of a range of people (the beneficiaries). It is commonplace for the trustee of a trust to be a company (a corporate trustee) for asset protection purposes.

The Australian Tax Office has published a Superannuation Guarantee Ruling which changes the definition of "Ordinary Time Earnings" (OTE) used to calculate employers Superannuation Guarantee obligations.

Under the ruling, OTE means all earnings from "ordinary hours of work". Salary and wages paid in the "ordinary hours of work" do not extend to overtime payments, according to the ruling.

The ruling also maintains that all types of bonuses are now to be included in OTE other than:

Tax bonus payment

• If your 2007-08 taxable income was up to and including $80,000 the bonus is $900
• If your income exceeded $80,000 but did not exceed $90,000 the bonus is $600
• If your income exceeded $90,000 but did not exceed $100,000 the bonus is $250.

There has been a change to the fuel tax credit rate for fuel used in heavy vehicles travelling on a public road. The rate to use when calculating claims will depend on when the fuel was acquired. This means:

• For fuel acquired from 1 January 2009 use the new rate of 17.143 cents per litre
• For fuel acquired before 1 January 2009 use the old rate of 18.51 cents per litre.

The Government has issued a new $4.7bn economic package to stimulate business investment and encourage capital expenditure.

As part of this the Government has introduced the following ‘capital investment allowances’ in relation to ‘depreciable assets’ (plant, equipment and motor vehicles) acquired between 13 December 2008 and 30 June 2009. To be eligible the assets must be ‘installed ready for use’ by 30 June 2010. This means: