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🔱 Senate3 readingsAmendments circulated

Coronavirus Economic Response Package Amendment (Ending Jobkeeper Profiteering) 2021

✦ Plain-English Summary

# Coronavirus Economic Response Package Amendment (Ending Jobkeeper Profiteering) Bill 2021

## What it does
This bill would force large companies that received JobKeeper payments during COVID to pay back the money if they made profits, paid dividends to shareholders, or gave bonuses to executives. It targets businesses with annual turnover over $50 million that benefited from the wage subsidy scheme between March 2020 and March 2021.

## Why it matters
JobKeeper was designed to help businesses keep workers employed during lockdowns—not to pad profits. The bill aims to recover taxpayer money from companies that used the subsidy while their finances actually improved, rather than struggling as intended.

## Key details
- **Who's affected:** Only large companies (over $50 million annual turnover) that received JobKeeper payments and either made a profit, paid shareholder dividends, or gave executive bonuses during that financial year
- **Trigger:** The bill defines "annual turnover" broadly to include sales, commissions, rent, government subsidies, interest, and other operating income
- **Timeline:** Would come into effect the day after receiving Royal Assent (parliamentary approval)

The bill is currently before the Senate but hasn't yet passed into law.

Official Description

Amends the Coronavirus Economic Response Package (Payments and Benefits) Act 2020 to: delay businesses with an annual turnover of more than $50 million from claiming GST credits for ten years, or until they pay back the amount of Jobkeeper payment they received equal to the amount of profits made and/or executive bonuses paid during the financial year in which the entity received the payment; and require the Australian Taxation Office to publish a list of all entities with an annual turnover of more than $50 million in receipt of Jobkeeper payments and how much each entity received.

Committee Referrals

Senate Economics Legislation Committee

Full bill PDF →APH page →

Audit History

Introduced

21 June 2021

Last updated on APH

10 Apr 2026

Last checked by Crossbench

yesterday

Full text indexed

yesterday

Constituent votes

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