NEW ‘INTEGRITY’ MEASURES FOR THE SMALL BUSINESS CGT CONCESSIONS – SIGNIFICANT CHANGES WHEN SELLING SHARES OR UNITS

Treasury has recently released draft legislation that significantly restricts the availability of the small business CGT concessions. The changes are labelled as ‘integrity measures’ which implement an announcement in the 2017-18 budget.

However, the changes go much further than the budget night announcement and will significantly restrict the availability of the small business CGT concessions (the Concessions) where shares or units are being sold. Worse still, the changes are proposed to take effect from 1 July 2017, which means that some taxpayers may already be caught out.