Government assistance for the Australian MedTech sector

MedTech News: The Medical Technology Association of Australia (MTAA) wrote to Minister Hunt recently outlining the very significant pressures facing the medical technology industry in the current environment and requesting a number of urgent measures to address the ongoing viability of Australia’s MedTech industry as the COVID-19 crisis continues.

The MTAA Board met with Health Minister Greg Hunt to discuss this and other matters, including the return to elective surgery and additional support measures for SMEs and Australian companies. 

Following this meeting and a period of intense discussions between MTAA and Minister Hunt and his office, a number of measures have been confirmed by the Minister in relation to PL reform.

MTAA has also been liaising with the Australian Tax Office (ATO) in order to seek clarity on the Jobkeeper provisions available to medtech companies, particular in relation to small companies where they are a local branch of a global company.

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The ATO have clarified that, in determining whether a company must show a 30% or a 50% reduction in turnover, the global revenue of the global entity of which it is a part is included. If the global entity exceeds $1b, at least a 50% reduction must be demonstrated to qualify.

However, once the threshold is set, the turnover test itself is based on local GST revenue, not global revenue. Therefore, a small company which is a local branch of a global company exceeding $1b in revenue in total would still need to show that Australian turnover has fallen more than 50% to qualify for JobKeeper.

If global revenues were less than $1b, the fall in Australian turnover would only need to be 30% to qualify.

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