WOOL INTERNATIONAL REGULATIONS (AMENDMENT) 1994 NO. 43

WOOL INTERNATIONAL REGULATIONS (AMENDMENT) 1994 NO. 43

STATUTORY RULES 1994 No. 43

Issued by the authority of the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy

WOOL INTERNATIONAL ACT 1993

WOOL INTERNATIONAL REGULATIONS (AMENDMENT)

The Wool International Act 1993 (the Act) provides for the Governor-General to make regulations for the purpose of prescribing all matters required or permitted by this Act to be prescribed.

The Act provides for the establishment of Wool International and its functions, powers, membership and related matters. Wool International is responsible for management and disposal of the wool stockpile, reducing the debt over time, encouraging the development of marketing and risk management mechanisms and providing other wool marketing related services. Wool International was established when the relevant parts of the Australian Wool Research and Promotion Organisation Act 1993 commenced by Proclamation on 1 December 1993.

Subsections 61(1) and 61(2) of the Act provides that Wool International is subject to taxation (other than income tax) under the laws of the Commonwealth but not subject to State or Territory taxation laws. However, subsection 61(3) of the Act provides that Wool International may be subject to taxation under a specified law of a State or Territory if it is provided for in the regulations.

The purpose of the proposed regulations relating to pay-roll tax is to remove the exemption of Wool International from paying pay-roll tax in the States and Territories. Removing Wool International from the exemption of State and Territory pay-roll accords with Commonwealth Government policy on this matter. In addition, such regulations will also mean that Wool International will not have an exemption to pay-roll tax as an apparent advantage over commercial enterprises.

The regulations relating to pay-roll tax prescribe relevant State and Territory pay-roll taxes for this purpose and are to have effect from 1 December 1993.

At the time of privatisation of Wool International, share rights will be issued to wool-tax payers in proportion to the wool tax paid between 1 July 1993 and the time of privatisation. In order to record the wool-tax paid for this purpose, a register of wool-tax payers is to be established and maintained by Wool International.

The remainder oil the proposed regulations, which are to commence on gazettal, provide the rules for the establishment and maintenance of such a register of wool-tax payers including the rules that are to apply to additional contributions that wool-tax payers may make over and above the wool tax they are required to pay. They also set out how often Wool International must provide wool-tax payers with reports on the wool-tax they have paid, the detail to be contained in those reports and what information the records for wool-tax payers on the register are to contain.

Provision for regulations relating to additional contributions by wool-tax payers is made in section 45 of the Act and for reporting of wool tax records to wool-tax payers, in section 64 of the Act. Provision for regulations relating to the keeping of the register by Wool International is made in section 66 of the Act.