Yahoo Finance Who are the winners and losers out of the 2019 federal budget?
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has handed down the 2019 Federal Budget – here’s who comes out on top, and who might take a hit from his first budget.
WINNERS
Low and middle-income taxpayers – The government is offering additional tax relief to low and middle-income earners.
Those earning up to $37,000 a year will receive tax relief of up to $255 a year; taxpayers who earn between $37,001 to $47,999 annually will get between $255 to $1,080 back; those earning $48,000 to $90,000 will receive the full tax relief of $1,080; and those earning upwards of $90,000 will see their tax relief gradually reduce from $1,080 to zero.
In total, 10 million taxpayers will benefit from additional tax relief, with 4.5 million to receive the full amount when they lodge their taxes for the 2018-19 financial year.
As of 2022-23, the 19 per cent tax bracket will include those earning between $41,000 and $45,000. Those earners previously were taxed at the 32.5 per cent tax rate. For those earning between $45,001 to $200,000, the tax rate will be lowered from 32.5 per cent to 30 per cent from 1 July 2024.
Small businesses – Small- and medium-sized companies turning over less than $50 million a year will have their tax rate lowered to 27.5 per cent in 2019-20, and further lowered to 25 per cent by 2021-22.
Tax discount rates will also be raised to 8 per cent in 2019-20 and hitting 16 per cent by 2021-22. The instant asset write-off threshold has also been increased from $25,000 to $30,000, and access to this threshold will be expanded to medium-sized businesses with turnovers of less than $50 million.
Jobseekers – $525.3 million will be spent over five years to upgrade the vocational education and training (VET) sector. It’ll deliver up to 80,000 new apprentices in areas of skill shortages, 10 national training hubs, a boost in literacy, numeracy, language and digital skills, and 400 training scholarships.
Commuters – $100 billion will be spent on infrastructure over the coming decade to ease congestion and connect towns and regions. Funding for the Urban Congestion Fund has quadrupled from $1 billion to $4 billion; $2 billion will be provided for a fast-rail between Melbourne and Geelong; and other fast-rail projects are underway in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane.
There’s also an extra $2.2 billion for safer roads and $100 million for regional airports.
Patients – $81.8 billion will be spent on healthcare. Specific winners are breast, kidney, bladder, liver, and skin cancer patients, people with acute Leukaemia, those with complex and chronic heart conditions, those who need MRI machines, dental services, and more medicines subsidised by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).
$737 million will be spent across seven years on mental health, with $461 dedicated to tackling youth mental health and suicide prevention.
Older Australians – $724.8 million has been dedicated across five years from 2018-19 to delivering better quality and better access to services.
It’ll mean 10,000 extra home care packages, 13,500 more residential care places will be made available from 2018-19, $60 million on residential care infrastructure and a $320 million general subsidy boost in 2018-19 for residential aged care. $18 million will be used to establish a new national hotline (1800 ELDERHelp).
Domestic violence victims – $82 million to improve frontline services for vulnerable women and children, $78.4 million to provide safe places for those impacted by domestic or family violence, $68.3 million on prevention strategies, $64 million for counselling service and national hotline 1800RESPECT, $35 million to support prevention strategies for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Flood and drought-affected farmers – $6.3 billion will go to providing farmers who need drought support and $3.3 billion will go to those affected by floods. A new Emergency Response Fund will be established to ensure additional resources are available for future national disaster recovery efforts.
Students – Funding for schools will increase from $19.9 billion in 2019 to $32.4 billion in 2029, a rise of 63 per cent. $30.2 million has also been provided to the Local School Community Fund, $432 million has been given to support access to preschool education for 2020, and $17.7 billion is being invested in the university sector. Another $93.7 million will be spent on scholarships for students to study at a regional campus of a university or educational provider.
Indigenous Australians – $37.5 million will go towards supporting housing for remote Indigenous Communities. $5 million has also been pledged to tackle suicide rates in the young Indigenous community.
Indigenous kids will also receive a $200 million Indigenous Youth Education Package that will fund scholarships, mentoring and support programs.
Welfare recipients – Australian pensioners, carers, disability support pensioners, single parents, war widows and veterans will receive a one-off Energy Assistance Payment of $75 if you’re single and $125 if you’re in a couple. This payment will land this financial year and will set the budget back $284.4 million over the two years from 2018-19.
LOSERS
Multinational tax dodgers – The ATO’s Tax Avoidance Taskforce is getting $1 billion to ensure multinational companies, big businesses and rich individuals pay their fair share of tax. A further $42.1 million across four years will be provided to the ATO to recover any unpaid tax or super from big companies or wealthy individuals.
Hopeful migrants – The migrant intake will be reduced from 190,000 a year to 160,000 for four years, meaning that by 2022-23, a total of 120,000 people will not have been to call Australia home.
Misbehaving banks and financial institutions – $640 million will be spent to restore trust in the financial sector, with banking watchdogs ASIC and APRA to get $400 million and $150 million apiece to strengthen supervision and enforcement of the finance sector. Also, more than $35 million will be spent on a new criminal jurisdiction of the Federal Court.
Gangs and drug suppliers – $152 million across four years has been allocated to nip illicit drug suppliers in the bud. Among other things, this funding will revitalise the National Anti-Gangs Squad (NAGS) which also has the capacity to target non-traditional and emerging criminal gangs.
Child sex offenders – $7.8 million over four years will be used for the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) to set up a National Public Register of Child Sex Offenders that will have personal information and photographs of convicted offenders living in the community.
Crazy yellow ants – $9.2 million will go to controlling yellow crazy ants in Queensland’s Wet Tropics World Heritage Area.
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