It may have been a Federal Budget containing few surprises, but the Treasurer did announce a range of cost-of-living measures with implications for your clients. Head of Technical Services Craig Day gives his view on what advisers need to be across on the 2024-25 Federal Budget announcement and proposed changes.
Well, the government has just handed down the Federal Budget for 2024-25. And probably the most surprising thing about the Budget was there was absolutely no surprises at all. As forecast, the main cost of living measure announced in this Budget was those changes to the Stage three tax cuts providing tax relief for all taxpayers.
However, the government has announced a range of cost of living measures that will be very important for some of your clients now.
These include a number of things, including a $300 non means-tested energy rebate. So that's a rebate that will automatically be applied to people's electricity bills commencing 1st July 2024, and it will be applied in quarterly installments.
The next announcement. And actually quite an important announcement is the government has confirmed that they will keep the current deeming rates at their current historically low levels for another 12 months.
So that's really good news for your Social Security and aged pension clients that won't have additional amounts of deemed income impacting their pension entitlements next year.
Also, what they have announced that they will be increasing the maximum rate of rent assistance by 10%, and that's over and above the 15% increase from last year. So significant increases there for rent assistance.
Moving on to some small business announcements. Now, the government has announced that they will be extending the $20,000 instant asset write off measure for an extra 12 months for eligible small businesses, as well as extending energy bill relief also to eligible small businesses.
And that will be an extra $325 off the electricity bills applied automatically to those bills, and that will apply very much in the same way that it's applying for households.
For a full analysis of the Federal Budget announcements, please see our Federal Budget briefing paper in your inbox.
And also tune in to one of our Federal Budget webinars tomorrow.
And on behalf of FirstTech, we look forward to bringing you the information that you need to know.
Labor’s third Budget was widely expected to focus on cost of living. This was delivered in the form of energy bill relief for all households, along with Stage three tax cuts that had already been legislated.
Social security proposals included freezing deeming rates at their current levels for a further 12 months, increases to Commonwealth Rent Assistance, and more flexibility for Carer Payment recipients.
Super was largely left unchanged although the Treasurer announced plans for eligible parents to receive 12 per cent super on of their government-funded Paid Parental Leave. For small businesses, the government announced it would extend the $20,000 small business instant asset write-off by 12 months until 30 June 2025.
To share highlights from the Budget with your clients, we’ve created an information flyer.
FirstTech presented a series of live webinars on Wednesday 15 May to discuss both what was announced and what missed out in the Federal Budget with advisers.
The video below is a recording of one of these webinars, where our FirstTech team unpacks the key announcements and outlines potential impacts to your clients’ advice strategies.
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