Explanatory Statement

Issued by authority of the Assistant Treasurer

Income Tax Amendment Regulations 2011 (No. 1)

Subject - Section 266 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936

Section 266 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 (the Act) provides, in part, that the Governor-General may make regulations prescribing all matters required or permitted by the Act to be prescribed, or necessary or convenient to be prescribed for carrying out or giving effect to the Act.

These Regulations amend the Income Tax Regulations 1936 to repeal regulation 147G from the Income Tax Regulations. Regulation 147G is the only provision still remaining in Part 7, and therefore the entire Part has been repealed.

The repeal forms part of the re-write of Divisions 8 and 10 of Part IV of the Act (relating to estimates rules). Divisions 8 and 10 have now been rewritten into Division 268 in Schedule 1 to the Taxation Administration Act 1953.

The rewritten provisions include no substantive policy change. However, they include the drafting changes needed to conform to the legislative approach used in the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997, to simplify expression, and to remove any ambiguity. Consequential to the rewrite of the Act, a rewritten regulation to replace Regulation 147G has been made under the Taxation Administration Act 1953.

These Regulations are a legislative instrument for the purposes of the Legislative Instruments Act 2003 (LIA 2003).

Consultation was not undertaken in relation to this instrument because it was minor or machinery in nature and did not substantially change the law.