Federal Budget 2012
 

Have been informed that the Federal Budget has implications for Airline Employee Staff Travel Benefits. Does anyone have any info that can expand on this, Google is proving unhelpful at this stage.

There will be an increase to the Fringe Benefits Tax (FBT) that the goverment will collect from airlines for allowing staff discounted or free flights. How the airlines absorb (or pass on) the increase in order to help their bottom lines is obviously yet to be seen...

New tax hits foreign investors, airlines - Federal Budget 2012 (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Just another nail in the coffin Julia :hmm:

Fuel-Off :ok:

This is in ADDITION to the Carbon Tax which raised fares by 2.5% to 7% earlier this year for Qantas and Jetstar respectively as examples.

:ugh:

DON'T get me started.:(

From: www.budget.gov.au
Fringe benefits tax — reform of airline transport fringe benefits

(Table of revenue deleted due formatting)

The Government will update the method of determining the taxable value of airline transport fringe benefits from stand‑by value to market value. This measure will apply to benefits provided after 7.30pm (AEST) on 8 May 2012. This measure is estimated to increase revenue by $12.0 million over the forward estimates period. The measure is also estimated to increase GST payments to the States and Territories by $4.0 million over the same period.

An airline transport fringe benefit may arise when an employee of an airline or travel agent is provided with free or discounted travel on a stand‑by basis. The taxable value of airline transport fringe benefits is currently the stand‑by value of the benefit less the employee contribution. This method was developed when stand‑by travel was a feature of commercial airline pricing and staff could be displaced from a flight up to the time of boarding. The concept of stand‑by travel, however, is no longer commercially relevant as airlines now use discounted pricing to optimise passenger levels. **

This reform progresses another recommendation of the Australia's Future Tax System review, and builds on the Government's growing record of tax reform.

** Maybe that's why Q ran the "confirmed category" Staff Travel survey recently.:rolleyes:

Nice work Joolia. I imagine nothing is being trimmed from the Pollies troughs though?
F:mad:ers

Still relevant where I work...

I think the point they are trying to make (poorly) is that as a commercial passenger you used to be able to buy a standby ticket to somewhere and wait all day before being unloaded.

I don't follow how now that the airlines don't utilise this feature any more as a pricing strategy why our 'standby' tickets are now costed as per a full fare ticket though given that we still get bumped.

Given how this Labor government has dealt with boat people, pink batts in ceilings, school halls, fuel watch, grocery watch, defence, immigration, cash spray outs to all and sundry are we really surprised that they chose to go down this road?

Not to mention the 700% increase in the passenger movement charge from $8 to $55. That will be of great assistance to a sector already struggling with a drop in inbound tourism.

This is on top of the budget cuts (sorry, "productivity dividends") in customs and quarantine which lead to bigger queues and length delays for inbound tourists.

Ask yourself whether these customers of Australia, who are coming to experience everything we have to offer, are getting value for their 55 bucks.

Yet they Government has extended the lease on the Challengers so they can still do their trips from Canberra to Sydney and Melbourne. If they wanted to save money why not base a few 38 SQN 350's in Canberra and use them for these flights.

Just remembered, pollies only like travelling in jets no matter what the cost.

Not to mention the 700% increase in the passenger movement charge from $8 to $55. That will be of great assistance to a sector already struggling with a drop in inbound tourism.

I think a bit of a miss read, the Australian says, increase of $8 to $55. Anyway still too much. Aviation is an easy target for taxes.

I like many crew rely of staff travel to get too work, so that my wife can continue to work in her job in our current town. I just want these people to go away, this is MY money not yours.

Oops, that's what I get for reading the tabloids.

Tabloid paper said from 8 dollars to 55 dollars. Sorry.:\

Still, you get thie idea!

OK? So what was the "stand-by" value anyway? Given that there has not been "stand-by" fares for eons!

Aren't staff travel benefits based on something like ID90 to full fare anyway? The full fare being the "market value"? And isn't that what FBT is currently based on?

No doubt airlines that value their employees will provide an explanation to this before they jack up the price of "stand-by" staff tickets! :ugh:

I vaguely recall 'impulse' in the 717 days bringing back the standby fare :confused: before they were bought up by qf at least... :mad:

Slight thread drift, but does anyone know how UK fringe benefit rules differ from Oz with respect to staff travel? Just like to know if there's a good reason why a seat from Sydney to Hong Kong on QF staff travel costs 260, whilst VS charge their staff less than half this?! :(

I don't know what you're all whining about. Surely we can afford to pay a bit more for our tickets. Airline pilots are rich, especially those on the north shore. Just ask Juliar. :mad:

The labour government could not organize a newspaper run.

Neither could the Labor government.

Do the Illegal Immigrants have to pay the 55 bucks? Why don't we just send a large ferry to Indonesia, let me see $55 bucks @ 200 head, hmmm, well it would pay for the fuel. The rest is for us to pay for.:{

However, they do have a (recently expelled) bloke who can organise the proverbial naughty in a knock-shop, and charge it to his (union) employers! ;)

His missus must be very forgiving, my missus would carry out some surgery that would require a plastic surgeons help, if it was me.:{

Ignorance and xenophobia hand in hand.

So of I work for Holden and get a discount on a new car, work for Westpac and get a discounted home loan, work at Coles and get 10% discount on groceries etc...

Do it for one group...do it for all of them. You can't just single out one item in one industry and make them pay. If there is FBT on staff travel then there hold be FBT on the discounted Car, groceries and home loan.

Do like Ansett did when they began.... You didn't buy a staff travel ticket on a plane, you purchased fruit and they include a flight. I don't think there is FBT payable on fruit purchase. BNE -SYD 1 apple. If you want to fly to Perth add a banana and orange!

I'll just add the FBT to the extra 30% I'm about to pay for health insurance!

The next election cannot come soon enough!

Even worse is that WE will be paying these monkeys their severance pay for the next 50 bloody years. Free travel card (I bet you don't miss the irony there boys), secretary, phone account, Stationary, and the list goes on. I for one will be writing and visiting my local Federal Labour member at first opportunity to personally voice my disgust.

If you want to be a sucker Headmaster, go ahead. I am all for immigration, but I would perfer to choose them, not they choose us.

Putting aside, for the moment, that the $55 is a departure, not arrival, tax, where do you think most illegal immigrants come from, and by what means of travel? Hint, it is not from Indonesia by boat.

The 'stop the boats' rhetoric from both sides of politics is playing the xenophobic public for suckers.

Headmaster,

Surely you don't believe that someone overstaying a visa is the same thing as someone who enters the country illegally?

If you come into this country with the wrong visa or no visa as the case may be, you get a one way ticket straight back home, with a time penalty before you can re-apply to come back. You don't get a comfy bed and excercise equipment and a widescreen tv and a tax funded lawyer. You get sent home.

If you over stay your visa then at the very least you are a known quantity with a known background and all the resources of international policing can be brought to bear against you.

On the other hand. The other is someone who enters the country illegally after traveling halfway around the world, country hopping until they get to the one that they have cherry picked, and deliberately arrive without any form of identification because they know that they really aren't considered to be refugees under the convention, but hope to slip through the legal net because our bleeding heart left wingers are working against us by supplying taxpayer funded lawyers to help them circumvent the laws of the land.

Whenever one of these people manage to circumvent the law, a real refugee in a camp some where loses their place in the quota queue.

As an airline Pilot I take furious exception to the notion that i have ever flown illegal immigrants into this country!!!

PJ, you are right, there is a difference between an asylum seeker and an illegal immigrant.

In the case of an over-stayed visa, I would guess that the status of illegal immigrant applies when the visa runs out. That would make the entry to Australia legal, but the overstay illegal. Similarly, an asylum seeker entering Australia by boat is not an illegal immigrant.

While your response highlights the ignorance and xenophobia of the general population, it has little to do with the fact that most of the illegal immigrants arrive by air.

That would depend on whether they are being persecuted and have something to seek 'asylum' from. If they're simply seeking better economic conditions then they're not asylum seekers are they.

The need for kahunas
 

Theheadmaster, if you don't like TG and PJ's posts then you are definitely not going to like this (and by the way I don't give a sh#t either) - We need to meet the boats with a dirty big cannon on a nice navy cruiser, point them back in the direction they came and give them to the count of 10 to piss off or be blown into the next life.
Enough of the limp wristed approach and political softness. You turn up in Indonesia illegally and see what happens. Horses for courses. Our country is struggling as it is, if anybody hasn't noticed we can't even fix our f&cking roads or build a new airport let alone spend hundreds of millions on pampering illegal immigrants. Now the fool Gillard wants to put them in our houses and pay us $300 to do it!!! I this sh#t for real?
What's next, cut back our Defence force capabilities and perhaps give $5billion to the IMF to blow trying to bail out a countries who have sunk themselves through greed, tax evasion and incompetence?? Oops sorry, Australlia has already done that!

Headmaster, if you arrive by air, you need all paperwork, if you arrive by a wooden boat, you have chucked it overboard to make it more difficult for the Dept of Immigration to find out who you actually are. There are more freckin passports floating around then there are fish up there. Then when the said dept tries to find out who they are, they whinge about being locked up. Most are economic refugees anyway, if you were scared ****less you would stop in the first muslim country you came across, not motor down to a Christian country that just happens to have centrelink. No centrelink in Indonesia mate. Anyway now you have a chance to welcome them and get paid. Just make sure your missus has her head covered, and you only serve halal.

Seriously what's happening in AUS?
The Carbon Queen is happy to allow boatloads of unscreened potential threats to enter our country illegally and then pay us to have them live in our houses, but then she denies the rights of a few Aussie queers to get married? She has truly lost the plot.

And this is all related to FBT how?

I completely agree. However, do you really think that Tony and Joe will get rid of the tax increase? Once it's a done deal, signed, sealed and delivered, and the money is allocated it's not so easy to get rid of the tax increase. That extra revenue will already be included in one or more of Juliar and Swan's vote buying schemes.

Good point. The conversation was deflected by a rather insensitive and ignorant post regarding asylum seekers. Bad things happen when good people do nothing in the face of attitudes of ignorance and persecution. Unfortunately the thread has gone off topic, and I am partly responsible for that. Perhaps the mods will edit out the offending posts. However personally, I don't feel comfortable letting such statements and attitudes go without comment.

Gobbledock, you are correct. I do not like your post. The reason I do not like it is that it reflects the views of intolerance and xenophobia that are completely unhelpful to any situation regarding refugees or asylum seekers or illegal immigrants. Even if you take aside those personal views, your position is against our obligations under international law.

TG, you make so many incorrect assumptions that any conclusion you come to is bound to be wrong.

Keg, I see your point, but we are bound by international treaty to assess the status of these people. I believe that we should do that efficiently, effectively and treat the people with dignity. If they are found not to meet the threshold criteria as legitimate asylum seekers, then they are treated accordingly. Yes there will be people trying to take advantage of the situation and slip past. That is a fact of life. I don't like that either, but the pragmatic reality is that although these situations are high profile and easily spark racist, prejudiced feelings amongst the weak minded, they don't pose anywhere near the economic burden of other real issues that are being ignored.

Coming here on a boat for economic advantage and pissing off the people who are already here is something that has been going on on this continent for several centuries ;) A mate of mine described this situation as a bit like the Indian train: everyone fights like hell to get on, then fights like hell to stop anybody else doing the same thing.

Regards...

A few thoughts:

1. Just thinking about typical tourists from countries such as Japan whom often travel into Cairns on a Japanese carrier, stay in a Japanese owned hotel, cruise to the barrier reef on a Japanese owned boat, and shop in Japanese owned gift stores. Pretty much all this country gets from them is the $55 tax!

2. An asylum seeker entering Australia by boat is not an illegal immigrant. That is true - until such time as they are refused asylum. That costs money to administer. Our money. Yes. What else are you going to do? Shoot them? Gobbledock, I usually like your posts, we should keep it to aviation.

3. teresa green: TG: My great great grandparents emigrated legally to this country in the early 1800's. They were not Christian and neither am I. We have farmed, traded and lived in this country happily ever since. Last time I looked at the constitution of this country I did not find the word "Christian". This country's constitution is based upon freedom of religion (and freedom to have no religion). I usually like your contributions to this forum on aviation related matters, please don't tarnish yourself with religious or race bias.

4. It appears that the Federal budget has long since ceased to have any relevance to this thread. I recommend closure.