Latest / Best of Business / Mark Hooper: Federated Farmers transport spokesperson on the backlash to the Government's new 'ute tax'

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Mark Hooper: Federated Farmers transport spokesperson on the backlash to the Government's new 'ute tax' · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News talks'd be follow
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  Speaker 2: Now tell you what farmers are not happy with Revenue
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  Speaker 2: Minister Simon wats are they? He is the guy responsible
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  Speaker 2: for a plan change to the way that fringe benefit
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  Speaker 2: tax applies to utes. If he goes through with this,
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  Speaker 2: it would cost farmers thousands of dollars every single year.
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  Speaker 2: Mark Hooper is Federated Farmer's Transport spokesperson with US.
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  Speaker 3: Now.
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  Speaker 1: Hey, Mark, good evening, Heather.
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  Speaker 2: Have you heard what the government's just sent through to us.
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  Speaker 3: I'm pretty much aware of what's been going on. Basically,
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  Speaker 3: it was a bit of a story that blew up
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  Speaker 3: post field days when there was a lot of hype
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  Speaker 3: around buying new utes with commodity price has been up
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  Speaker 3: and the government government's newly announced investment boost which allowed
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: an immediate twenty percent depreciation deductibility on US sets. And
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  Speaker 3: then in the midst of that, fintech findecks sorry tax advisors,
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  Speaker 3: they sort of said, hang on a minute, whatever you
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  Speaker 3: just saved on depreciation a new you you could just
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  Speaker 3: have ended up losing through the proposed changes to the
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  Speaker 3: FBT rules. So it was a bit of a classic
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  Speaker 3: case of giving on one hand while taking on the other.
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  Speaker 3: And not only that, but of course it's a FBT
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  Speaker 3: is the cost every year, So obviously the optics around
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  Speaker 3: this we're not looking too good at the time.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so have you heard what the government's just
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  Speaker 2: sent through to us?
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  Speaker 3: What have they sent through all of.
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  Speaker 2: This debarcle mark over the last few days has gone
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  Speaker 2: on about a week now. They have sent us a
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  Speaker 2: statement that says, in terms of introducing a new eighty
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  Speaker 2: thousand dollars fringe benefit tax threshold on youtes, we can
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  Speaker 2: rule that out ird consider a lot of things regularly,
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  Speaker 2: but this is something that is not going to get progressed.
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  Speaker 2: How good.
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  Speaker 3: That's a great result, and that was certainly one of
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  Speaker 3: the issues that we had with it. You know, we
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  Speaker 3: looked at it from the perspective of what we know
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  Speaker 3: actually happens on farms. And you know, if you're buying
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  Speaker 3: new utes, if you want to look at say a
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  Speaker 3: seventy series land Cruiser, your starting prices around eighty grand,
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  Speaker 3: and regardless of whether it was one hundred percent work
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  Speaker 3: related use or not, by going over that threshold, it
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  Speaker 3: immediately put you into one hundred percent payment for FBT
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  Speaker 3: criteria and so that was a considerably ongoing significant expense
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  Speaker 3: on that purchase.
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  Speaker 2: How long have you guys been going on about this?
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  Speaker 3: Well, as I say, it only just blew up really
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  Speaker 3: post field days, and I think that was I see
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  Speaker 3: part of the iss.
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  Speaker 2: On some of these stories. So that's that's Friday. Is
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  Speaker 2: it Friday last week?
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  Speaker 3: So that yeah, that's right.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that would have been going on about it since
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  Speaker 2: Friday last We've got no traction at all, and then
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  Speaker 2: all of a sudden today they do a U turn.
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  Speaker 3: Well, we've had a little bit of communication with the
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  Speaker 3: Minister's office obviously. You know, as I said, we looked
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  Speaker 3: at it from a farm perspective. We could see that
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  Speaker 3: there were some issues with the categories that they had
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  Speaker 3: laid out. Was really easy for the way that we
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  Speaker 3: used farm use for those to be escalated into the
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  Speaker 3: higher categories, hence a significantly greater FBT liability. And so
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  Speaker 3: you know, once that came out, it was just a
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  Speaker 3: case of really getting hold of the Minister's office and
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  Speaker 3: talking through some of these issues. It's great to hear
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  Speaker 3: an immediate response.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, it's brilliant, Mark, Thank you very much. I'm
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  Speaker 2: stoked for you. Mark Hooper, Federated Farmers Transport Spokesperson.
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