Junior miners is campaigning for the Federal Government to extend and double the size a tax scheme designed to keep investor dollars flowing into high-risk mineral pursuits.
With the Junior Minerals Exploration Incentive Scheme set to expire at June 30, the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies is pushing for the investor lure to become a permanent fixture of the Federal Budget.
Treasury has doled out more than $182 million under the program since its fiscal 2017-18 debut — all in the hope of encouraging more investment in companies hunting for the new big discovery.
AMEC’s campaign is to be spearheaded by a report from accounting firm BDO estimating the scheme has spurred $404 million of exploration spending and an additional $1.2 billion in capital raisings.
“We need to replenish end of life mines with new greenfield exploration discoveries,” AMEC’s chief executive Warren Pearce said.
“This is a critical investment in Australia’s future and supports mineral exploration — a long-term, high-risk activity.”
AMEC will on Monday commence a push for $200 million to be pumped into the scheme over the next four financial years. It has also called for the scheme allocations to be merit-based, rather than the current first come, first served system.
The former Coalition Government commenced the scheme in 2017 with an allocation of $105 million over four years, and extended it with a further $100m budgeted to be spent from 2021-22 to the end of 2024-25.
There are fears the Albanese Government will not extend the scheme, which supporters argue recognises the extremely risky nature of exploration in unproven areas.
This greenfields exploration requires high-risk spending on surveying and drilling programs. The majority of explorers lose millions of dollars and then need to raise more money to keep going.
In a bid to keep investor dollars flowing, Junior Minerals Exploration Incentive Scheme has allowed participating companies to convert a portion of their tax losses into an exploration credit.
This exploration credit can then be passed on to investors who have recently bought shares in the company, via an equity raising, to be used as a tax offset.
AMEC says 131 companies have successfully applied and received $182m of credits since 2017.
AMEC argues exploration is the ‘lifeblood’ of Australia’s mining industry, and that it is vital to keep the next lot of gold, iron ore and base metal mines in the pipeline.
According to BDO’s report, 54 per cent of juniors said the credits had boosted their equity raisings.
The BDO report, to be released Monday, a claims the exploration work has identified $5.9 billion worth of minerals over the next 66 years.
AMEC push comes less than six months out from a Federal election, and as WA’s mining sector continues to be vocal critic of what it deems as onerous bureaucratic approvals systems holding back new projects.
The mining group successfully drove a huge Canberra lobbying effort to have production tax credits included as part of the 2024-2025 Federal Budget tabled in May.
https://thewest.com.au/business/mining/explorers-angle-for-albanese-government-to-make-tax-sweeteners-for-new-investors-a-permanent-budget-fixture–c-17272062
