Post 2005 SIP - Major Changes

• Claims must be lodged by end February rather than end March.
  
  
• Final payments will be made between 1-10 June in Year 5 of the current Scheme and throughout the new Scheme.
  
  
• Requests for Advances can be made between 1 July and the beginning of January. Advances will be paid “as soon as practicable”. Currently 50% is paid within 60 days and the balance within 60 days of the final claim.
  
  
• Pre or post payment audits are being conducted with a stricter level of compliance. Ausindustry now has the power to recover grants from any grant year for virtually any reason, including error by the claimant or Ausindustry.
  
  
• There are no Type 3 Grants. Type 1 Grants will have a grant rate of 40% rather than 20%. Type 2 grants will have a grant rate of 80% rather than 45%.
  
  
• Salary costs will be uplifted by 110% to cover on-costs, administrative support and overheads. Currently you can only claim the 110% uplift with a separate R&D area and cost centre.
  
  
• Salary claims will be paid on the full salary, commissions, bonuses, allowances, etc rather than being capped at $92,307.
  
  
• Brand support will be a Type 1 activity, rather than a Type 2 and will no longer be restricted to innovative product. Claims will be capped at $3m a year.
  
  
• Clothing and finished textile producers can spend up to $2m a year on non-production related IT. Current IT expenditure must be directly concerned with design and/or manufacture.
  
  
• All claimants must reach the $200k expenditure threshold to receive their first grant in the new Scheme but there will be no subsequent $100k threshold. Your Year 5 claim counts towards the $200k threshold but is not included in your grant payment.
  
  
• Grant Entitlements in excess of the 5% sales cap in Year 5 do not carry over to the new Scheme, but annual excesses within the new Scheme will again be carried forward.
  
  
• The annual pool of funds is slightly smaller and due to the larger number of claimants, and their improved ability to extract claims, modulation may be invoked. This would lower all claimants grants on a pro rata basis.
  
  
• A Product Diversification Scheme will allow clothing and finished textile producers to earn Duty Credits on incremental increased production on a given class of goods. These will offset import duty on clothing or finished textile products and are not transferable.
  
  
• Claimants must agree to have their name and grant allocation published