It's Christmas time which usually means the political and parliamentary off season. So then why has government announced a House sitting for next week Wednesday? Well the House papers haven't been circulated yet, but 7NEWS has been reliably informed that government will use the meeting to pass the 10% general sales tax bill (GST). The means it would present the bill for its second and third readings after the bill was introduced on November 11. And even though it would pass into law by the end of the year, as we understand it, implementation is still set for the start of the new fiscal year on April first.
So why is government rushing to push through the legislation, three months before implementation? Well, we can't quite say, but conventional political wisdom is that the government would hope to create as much distance as it can between the introduction of a new tax and municipal elections in March. And that's probably due to the fact the new tax will be politically explosive because for the first time, government will charge a tax on light bills.
How much and at what threshold? Well those are the figures government's technicians are still trying to juggle. The Prime Minister has said government is hoping to exclude $40,000 consumers from paying the tax. Our reports are that the tax exemption threshold would be at just about $150, meaning that those whose light bill is less than $150 would likely not pay the tax. Again that is just a proposal and a BEL spokesperson today told us there are still discussing with government whether that $150 would be inclusive or exclusive of service charges. That is, whether the threshold would be determined as the value of solely kilowatt hours consumed or the net of kilowatt hours used plus service charges.
Again, these are currently only proposals and those calculations of how wide the tax net will be cast continue through the holidays, leaving the final verdict unknown most likely until next week's sitting.
