Tonight's Budget is very much an election year budget. With
an $18 billion deficit to deal with, the Treasurer cited massive
falls in projected tax revenue as the cause, including a fall in
revenue from the mining tax that was originally expected to raise
$13 billion over the first four years, while the revised estimate
is now $3.3 billion over the same period. Corporate Australia and
non-resident investors are the focus of many of the significant tax
changes proposed in this Budget and, if the proposals are
ultimately passed into law, are likely to have a significant impact
on investment.
The big question will be which of the Budget announcements the
Government will be able to legislate before the Federal election in
September. There are only 19 sitting days of Parliament before the
election and the Government has more than 100 proposed tax changes
that are not yet legislated. Some of these include announcements in
last year's Federal Budget, including measures
