Income Tax (FamilyBoost) Amendment Bill

We now come to clause 3. This is the debate on the principal Act. The question is that clause 3 stand part.

Thank you, Mr Chair. To your earlier guidance that you provided, this is the part where we can speak about the substantive policy, isn’t it?

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): This is the principal Act bit. So I was talking about clauses 4 and 5; this is clause 3.

Hon BARBARA EDMONDS: My apologies. Then, therefore, to the principal Act. My question is to the Minister in the chair, the Hon Simon Watts, because throughout the regulatory impact statements, there are some elements that have been withheld due to—I understand that it’s section 9(2)(f)(iv) of the Official Information Act. So my question to the Minister is those particular elements. Again, this is a regulatory impact statement that was done in June. We haven’t been able to scrutinise this in the select committee process. What exactly—or why have they been withheld, and given the date of this particular regulatory impact statement, can they actually be released? My question really is: should some of those changes be done now through this particular bill, or the next bill as part of the taxation bill, or, actually, should this be done as a separate bill itself, or there’s upcoming changes coming?

Thank you, Mr Chair. In terms of the principal Act, I actually want to talk about the overall amendment we’re looking at in terms of the Income Tax Act, because one of the things we’re looking at in terms of FamilyBoost is subpart MH. When we’re looking at MH 1—the majority of the amendment that we’re looking at in this bill is around MH 3 and MH 5, but MH 1 actually sets out the whole purpose of family credit in the first place. I quote from MH 1: “The purpose of the FamilyBoost tax credit is to provide financial assistance to caregivers with early childhood education costs.” Now, with that part of the principal Act, it makes sense, but without any specificity that all caregivers should have some form of financial assistance for the early childhood education cost; however, I’m noting, on page 8, table 2 of the regulatory impact statement, that overall we have seen total year to date 28,540 families or applicants have been denied their claim to FamilyBoost.

I wondered if—seeking clarity from the Minister in chair on whether the fact that there is such a huge number of declined claims actually serves the purpose of the principal Act, particularly section MH 1, at all. So it’s a short question, just asking the Minister for clarity on whether he thinks that the providing financial assistance to caregivers gives the implication that it’s supposed to be for all caregivers, yet we are seeing a lot of claims denied.

While the Minister seeks guidance, I’ll just take another quick, short call on the principal Act which is: other than these two, is there any other part of subpart MH or broader aspects of the Income Tax Act that would be affected by the changes we’re seeing right now?

In response to the question in regards to the elements that have been withheld, those elements are being withheld because they remain under active consideration.