Australia: House passes legislation clarifying “exploration for petroleum,” updating transfer pricing guidance

The Treasury Laws Amendment (Delivering Better Financial Outcomes and Other Measures) Bill 2024 has passed the House of Representatives, with amendments.

The legislation—introduced in March 2024 (read TaxNewsFlash)—proposes tax measures that would:

• Provide legal certainty for the payment of financial adviser fees from a member’s superannuation fund account and remove regulations that currently adds to the cost of financial advice with no benefit to consumers
• Amend the general anti-avoidance provisions in the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax Assessment Act 1987 so that they align with the more robust drafting approach of the general anti-avoidance provisions in Part IVA of the ITAA 1936
• Clarify the meaning of the phrase “exploration for petroleum”
• Provide that mining, quarrying or prospecting rights (MQPR) cannot be depreciated for income tax purposes until they are used, not merely held
• Clarify the circumstances in which the issue of new MQPR rights over areas covered by existing rights lead to income tax adjustments
• Update transfer pricing guidance to the most recent version of the Transfer Pricing Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and Tax Administrations, which was adopted by the OECD’s Committee of Fiscal Affairs and published on 20 January 2022
• Make changes to the location tax offset and producer tax offset for films
• Make other technical and miscellaneous amendments