The Government has passed legislation on a number of changes to the Export Market Development Grants (EMDG) scheme that will impact claims made for eligible expenses incurred after 1 July 2010.
The recent changes include:
- extending the Export Market Development Grants (EMDG) to 2015/16;
- reducing the maximum assessed grant from $200,000 to $150,000;
- reducing the maximum number of grants available from 8 to 7;
- capping intellectual property registration expenses at $50,000 per application;
- increasing the minimum expenses threshold from $10,000 to $20,000;
Note: the deductible amount remains at $10,000 for grants calculation purposes. - increasing the income limit for members of approved joint ventures/consortia from $30 million to $50 million;
- removing approved trading houses as an eligible special approval applicant category;
- reinstating disqualifying conviction provisions in the Act
In addition to these changes, the EMDG Amendment Act 2010 also:
- enables Austrade to impose conditions on the accreditation of EMDG consultants;
- amends the ‘form and manner’ requirements and claim lodgement deadlines for applications submitted by accredited EMDG consultants;
Pattens Group has several accredited “best practice” consultants who have consistently exceeded Austrade’s minimum performance standard for consultant prepared EMDG claims.
