The Government announced in the 2012-13 Budget that it would update the method of determining the taxable value of 'airline transport fringe benefits' from stand-by value to market value.
'Airline transport fringe benefits' may arise when an employee of an airline or travel agent is provided with free or discounted airline travel on a stand-by basis.
The Fringe Benefits Tax Assessment Act 1986 (the Act) currently includes special provisions prescribing the treatment of airline transport fringe benefits.
The Government will repeal these special provisions, to bring the treatment of airline transport fringe benefits provided to employees of airlines and travel agents within the general provisions of the Act dealing with 'in-house' fringe benefits.
Stand-by travel – whereby an individual can be displaced from a flight up to the time of flight closure – is no longer a feature of commercial airline pricing in Australia, as airlines now use discounted pricing to optimise passenger levels.
As stand-by airline travel is no longer provided on a commercial basis, its taxable value under the general provisions dealing with 'in-house' fringe benefits will be 75 per cent of its 'notional value'.
In order to provide certainty and reduce compliance costs, the Government will specify in the Act that the 'notional value' of stand-by airline travel is 50 per cent of the lowest publicly advertised economy air fare charged for that particular route during that FBT year.
The exposure draft of the legislation and explanatory memorandum will be uploaded to this page for public consultation as soon as practicable. A due date for submissions on an exposure draft will be announced once the materials have been released.
Making a Submission
Interested parties are invited to comment on these further details.
While submissions may be lodged electronically or by post, electronic lodgement is preferred. For accessibility reasons, please submit responses sent via email in a Word or RTF format. An additional PDF version may also be submitted.
All information (including name and address details) contained in submissions will be made available to the public on the Treasury website unless you indicate that you would like all or part of your submission to remain in confidence. Automatically generated confidentiality statements in emails do not suffice for this purpose. Respondents who would like part of their submission to remain in confidence should provide this information marked as such in a separate attachment.
Address written submissions to:
The Manager
Philanthropy and Exemptions Unit
Indirect Tax Division
The Treasury
Langton Crescent
PARKES ACT 2600
Email: fbt@treasury.gov.au
For enquiries please call Raylee O’Neill 02 6263 3141 .