Apart from the rate of excise applied to craft beer, the mechanics of payment is a major issue for smaller brewers. Treasury is currently considering amending the excise settlement period and businesses are invited to make submissions on the changes by 4 November 2011.

Treasury Release

Treasury has released for public consultation, exposure draft legislation intended to provide businesses with greater flexibility in managing their settlement of excise and excise-equivalent customs duties.

The draft legislation will allow eligible small business entities to apply for a permission to defer their settlement of excise and excise equivalent customs duties to a monthly reporting cycle, as opposed to the existing standard seven day arrangement. Therefore, small business entities will be required to lodge only 12 returns per year, as opposed to 52 returns per year under the current arrangements.

The draft legislation will also allow eligible producers of goods prescribed by regulations to apply for a permission to defer their settlement of excise and excise-equivalent customs duties to a monthly cycle. The regulations are designed to ensure that existing monthly settlement arrangements for producers of certain petroleum products remain unchanged.

All businesses operating under the existing standard seven day settlement period, beginning Monday and ending Sunday, will become eligible to apply for a new weekly period, to begin on their preferred day. If a business’s permission relates to gaseous fuel, the proposed changes will allow that business to give the Collector a return, on or before the sixth business day following the end of each 7 day period.

Making a submission

Interested parties are invited to comment on the proposed legislation. While submissions may be lodged electronically or by post, electronic lodgement is preferred. For accessibility reasons, please submit responses sent via email in a Word or RTF format. An additional PDF version may also be submitted.

All information (including name and address details) contained in submissions will be made available to the public on the Treasury website unless you indicate that you would like all or part of your submission to remain in confidence. Automatically generated onfidentiality statements in emails do not suffice for this purpose. Respondents who would like part of their submission to remain in confidence should provide this informationmarked as such in a separate attachment. Legal requirements, such as those imposed by the Freedom of Information Act 1982, may affect the confidentiality of your submission.

Closing date for submissions: Friday, 4 November 2011

Address written submissions to:

The General Manager
Indirect Tax Division
The Treasury
Langton Crescent
PARKES ACT 2600

Fax: (02) 6263 4326

Email: ExciseComplianceBill@treasury.gov.au

For enquiries, please call Neil Russell (02) 6263 3226 .

Details and discussion papers can be found here.

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