GOLD MINING ENCOURAGEMENT (No. 2).

No. 46 of 1940.

An Act to amend the Gold Mining Encouragement Act 1940.

[Assented to 21st August, 1940.]

BE it enacted by the King’s Most Excellent Majesty, the Senate, and the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Australia, as follows:—

Short title and citation.

1.—(1.) This Act may be cited as the Gold Mining Encouragement Act (No. 2) 1940.

(2.) The Gold Mining Encouragement Act 1940 is in this Act referred to as the Principal Act.

(3.) The Principal Act, as amended by this Act, may be cited as the Gold Mining Encouragement Acts 1940.

Commencement.

2. This Act shall come into operation on the day on which it receives the Royal Assent.

Refunds of gold tax to bona fide prospectors.

3. Section seven of the Principal Act is amended by inserting in sub-section (1.), before the word “gold”, the word “fine”.

Cost of production.

4. Section ten of the Principal Act is amended—

(a) by omitting paragraph (a) of sub-section (1.) and inserting in its stead the following paragraph:—

“(a) the cost of—

(i) mining or obtaining the ore or other material actually treated from which the gold was produced; and

(ii) the treatment of that ore or other material;”; and

(b) by omitting paragraph (c) of sub-section (1.) and inserting in its stead the following paragraph:—

“(c) the average cost, per ounce of fine gold, of development—

(i) in the quarter during which the gold was produced; or

(ii) in the two years immediately preceding that quarter,

whichever is the less:

Provided that the average cost per ounce of fine gold taken into account shall not in any case exceed Two pounds;”.

5. After section ten of the Principal Act the following section is inserted:—

Accounting periods.

“10a.—(1.) Where the Commissioner of Taxation is satisfied that the accounts of a producer are kept in such a manner as to make it inconvenient to the producer for the amount of any refund of gold tax to be determined in respect of the gold produced by him in any quarter, the Commissioner of Taxation may approve of that amount being determined in respect of the gold produced by that producer in such accounting periods (not being accounting periods which commenced before the first day of July, One thousand nine hundred and forty) as the Commissioner of Taxation, by order, specifies.

“(2.) Where accounting periods are so specified in relation to any producer, sections eight and ten of this Act shall be construed in relation to that producer as if any reference to a quarter were a reference to any such accounting period.

“(3.) The Commissioner of Taxation may, by order, revoke or vary any order made under this section.”.