QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Dr CHALMERS (Rankin—Treasurer) (15:02): The reforms that will be introduced in the parliament tomorrow are all about better aligning the tax treatment of income from working with the tax treatment of income from assets. What we have done is we've picked up the concerns that have been raised for decades in various tax reviews, going all the way back to the Asprey report in 1975, the Ralph review in 1999, the Henry review and the coalition's own tax discussion paper in 2015.

The reason that we are dealing with this is that the flexibility provided by trusts can allow some Australians to plan their tax affairs in ways that aren't available to most workers and to most families. We recognise that there are— Dr CHALMERS: I'm asked about the number of trusts and the number of small businesses. What we've seen in the last 20 years is that the number of discretionary trusts has more than doubled.

But, even with that being the case, the vast majority of Australians—somewhere around 95 per cent—don't receive trust income, and less than 10 per cent of small businesses will be affected in any given year by the changes that we are seeking to legislate after tomorrow. Now, the other really important point is that we have ensured that there are a range of options for all of those small businesses to pay a wage to beneficiaries or to restructure into a fixed trust or into a company with expanded rollover relief, or to choose to be exempt by electing to make fixed distributions.

There are a range of options available to all of those small businesses and all of those trusts—rollover relief and other mechanisms—should those people, those small businesses and those trusts, elect to change their arrangements because of the change that we're proposing. The final point is this: these changes don't come in until the middle of 2028. What we've done is provide the necessary arrangements for people to restructure their affairs, if they would like to do that.

But even as it stands right now, less than 10 per cent of small businesses will be affected in any given year by the changes that we are proposing. (Time expired)