Russell Deborah; Watts SimonHon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): Thank you Mr Chair. I do want to remind the Minister the Hon Simon Watts that he hasn't as yet answered my colleague Megan Woods' question about clause 7. The standard income tax rates—10.5 percent 17.5 percent 30 percent 33 percent and 39 percent—are the tax rates that sit in the income tax scale as it is at present and the income tax scale as is going to be proposed by this bill. Those are the numbers you'd expect to see in the legislation but if we go to Schedule 1 the income tax rates we see there are 10.5 percent—well it's expressed as 0.1050. Putting this in percentages it's 12.82 percent. That's neither 10.5 nor 17.5 or anything like that. Then it's 17.5. Then the next tax rate there is 21.64 percent. It's like the unusual date; these are unusual numbers.Anyone looking at this bill would be looking to see the standard tax rates and they'd look at this and they'd go Why are these numbers sitting in there?" The next one is 30 percent. That's a standard tax rate; we've had that in place for a long time. But then the next one is 30.99. So you sort of think "Where has that number come from?" I'm going to hazard a guess as to why it's there. It's because they've got this unusual start date and so there is something going on there. But I would like to know where the Minister gets those numbers. Again I just want to know where those unusual numbers do actually come from. Now this is a question that my colleague Megan Woods asked and it hasn't been answered as yet.Sitting in the same sort of space—and this one has really got me curious because actually I couldn't work this one out—Hon Dr Megan Woods: You're a curious person.Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: I am a curious person. We're told that these new tax rates are coming in from 31 July but if we go to clause 6—now we haven't discussed clause 6 yet so I would like to have a look at clause 6—clause 6 concerns fringe benefit tax (FBT). Actually the numbers around fringe benefit tax are quite confusing in themselves and we haven't discussed this yet.The way FBT is calculated is rather complex but the bit that really gets me and that I find really curious is that sitting in the commentary on clause 6—now this is sitting in the bill commentary—it says that it's going to start in place from 1 April 2024. Now the commencement date itself is interesting but there must be a mathematical reason for that or some reason why the FBT rates are going to start from that particular date. It must be to do with their relationship to the income tax rates and the timing of the year and things like that. So I would like to have a little bit of a discussion from the Minister as to that relationship of the FBT rates to the income tax rates and in particular again that date—why 1 April 2024 when the rest of it is 30 July?Again there's a disparity there. I would like the Minister to explain why it's there and if he could I think especially those questions that my colleague the Hon Dr Megan Woods raised. They have not been answered yet.Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue): Thank you very much to the member for those questions. Going back to the original questions by the Hon Megan Wood—Hon Dr Deborah Russell: Woods.Hon SIMON WATTS: —Woods—sorry; the Hon Megan Woods—about why the rates are a little bit different. Well the member the Hon Dr Deborah Russell actually answered the question. It's because there are in effect two sets of rates in one year and as you'd expect we need to do a composite set of rates to take into account to get the full-year effect. So what you're seeing in that table is the composite set of those two rates. The Inland Revenue Department has calculated those and that is the method behind that table. So I hope that covers off that question.On the question in regards to fringe benefit tax (FBT)—if I recall rightly—there have been changes to the FBT thresholds which will flow through from 1 April 2025. There is a technical change in regards to the attribution calculation in the area of the way in which FBT is calculated and some of those changes will apply from 1 April 2024. This change simply refers to the fact that the employers are paying the correct amount of FBT given the changes that apply to personal income tax rates for FBT. So they apply from different dates. That's the reason why you're seeing the implication in regards to those aspects in the FBT aspect of the calculation."