There’s a $1.020 bn in the budget for the Research and Development Tax Incentive

What, the programme the Review of the Three Fs wanted to scale back, which the government has had a couple of goes at doing, you ask? That’s it, the reform proposal by Bill Ferris, Alan Finkel and John Fraser which CMM started reporting four years back, (CMM July 7 2016).

In 2018, the government wanted to increase the threshold to qualify and cap cash payments, thus; “ensuring the integrity and fiscal affordability” of the tax incentive.

This stalled in the Senate, so there was another go on 2019 which –  went nowhere.

And now there is a third attempt – some of the original ideas are still there (a 30 per cent increase in the threshold for the concession).  But budget papers show the incentive costing $2bn, across the forward estimates “rewarding those businesses that invest the most,” as the Treasurer put it Tuesday night.

All over red (as in deficit) rover.