Barry Maggie: Supplementary Estimates Taxation (Livestock Valuation Assets Expenditure and Remedial Matters) Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBarry Maggie: Supplementary Estimates Taxation (Livestock Valuation Assets Expenditure and Remedial Matters) Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 26 June 2013. Volume:691;Page:11349. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Supplementary EstimatesMAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore):I rise to speak to the second reading of the Taxation (Livestock Valuation Assets Expenditure and Remedial Matters) Bill. As has been pointed out by other speakers—and I am to going to talk about what is in the bill as opposed to what other people wish was in the bill which we have heard quite a bit about from the speaker who just resumed her seat Julie Anne Genter—this is a bill that proposes to broaden the tax base with changes that are going to make the tax system fairer and the economy stronger. That is its bottom line. This bill introduces amendments to several inland revenue Acts and regulations. The sponsor of this bill the Hon Todd McClay outlined those earlier so I am not going to repeat those.It includes supporting provisions to the livestock valuation rules which make elections to use the herd scheme generally irrevocable. This is a fairly complicated area. It is one that I am sure my esteemed colleague an expert in this matter David Bennett will be talking about in due course.This is a bill that does focus on helping businesses. As an example of that our current GST laws can present an obstacle and we need to address this to stay globally competitive. GST as we all know is a tax on consumption. It is not a tax on business. It should therefore be neutral for both resident and non-resident businesses. This bill deals with that aspect.Lease inducement and lease surrender payments are another area that is perhaps a little arcane to many of us. It is something that looks at proposed amendments that will modify the capital revenue boundary for two specific commercial land - related lease payments—namely lease inducement payments and lease surrender payments. That is also going to be tidied up by this piece of legislation.In my electorate of the North Shore people took a bit of an interest in assets expenditure. Some assets such as holiday homes aircraft and boats are often used to earn income for their owners and also used privately. When you are looking at issues of fairness in tax this is an area that requires examination. These sorts of assets are commonly referred to as mixed-use assets. The situation as it stands now is that tax rules allow deductions for expenditure incurred in earning taxable income and disallow deductions for expenditure that relates to the private use of an asset. However these sorts of rules can be difficult to apply to expenditure that does not clearly relate to either the income-earning or private use of an asset. Some examples of that include expenditure while the asset is not being used and expenditure on general repairs and maintenance. They are a couple of examples that many of us have had some experience of. The current practice is that many owners of such mixed assets deduct all theexpenditure that relates to the period within which the asset is not being used leading to excessive tax deductions.So once again looking at issues of fairness and balance this bill proposes new rules that prescribe the amount of deductions that owners of certain assets can claim. Minister McClay the sponsor of this bill stated in the first call on this bill tonight that tax rules must try not to be too onerous. In my opinion this bill succeeds in that very well and I commend it to the House.