On 25 February 2015, the Government released an options paper titled ‘Strengthening Australia’s Foreign Investment Framework’ that proposes a series of new policy positions regarding acquisitions of real estate property, farm land and businesses by foreigners. The proposed changes include the introduction of a new fee paying foreign investment application regime, enabling Australian Taxation Office (ATO) to enforce a penalty regime and reducing monetary thresholds for screening of investment applications for certain agricultural land and business by foreign private investors, both from free trade agreement (FTA) and non-FTA partner countries.
The key initiatives are:
The recently released Australia’s Foreign Investment Policy 2015, by the Treasury spells out the details about other new initiatives:
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