Treasury has released a consultation paper in connection with the Statutory Review of the Payment Times Reporting Act 2020 (Cth).

The Act aims to make information publicly available on the Payment Times Reporting Portal payment terms and practices of large businesses and government enterprises in relation to their small
business suppliers to create an incentive for them to improve their payment terms and practices in relation to small businesses and to help those small businesses decide with whom to do business.

A business is a reporting entity if in its most recent income year:

• its total income was more than A$100 million;
• for an entity that is a controlling corporation, the combined total income of the members of the controlling corporation’s group was more than A$100 million, or
• for an entity that is a member of a controlling corporation’s group that has a combined income of more than A$100 million, the total income for the member was at least A$10 million.

The Review will consider the efficacy of the Act in meeting its legislated objectives, the impact of
related government policies on payment terms and performance, and whether there are other
measures that could help improve payment outcomes for small businesses.

It will also consider whether mandated maximum payment periods of 30 days, 20 days, or 10 days or less would improve payment terms and practices, and whether mandated maximum payment
periods of 5 days would be appropriate if electronic invoicing were used.

If you found this article helpful, then subscribe to our news emails to keep up to date and look at our video courses for in-depth training. Use the search box at the top right of this page or the categories list on the right hand side of this page to check for other articles on the same or related matters.