The Institute lodged its 2009-10 Pre-budget submission on 15 January 2009 and issued a media release, entitled Tax changes to fuel the economy, the following Monday..  
 
The Institute begins the tax submission by acknowledging the challenges faced by the government in the current economic climate and recognising that there may be need for further fiscal stimulus in response to the global economic downturn. The submission goes on to flag that there may be specific tax measures associated with debt/equity swaps, liquidation, losses, write-downs, etc that might not have been identified or given high priority in a prosperous economic climate that may require prompt policy and/or legislative amendments.  
 
The submission also makes comments on areas such as the Australia’s future tax system (AFTS) review, company loss and bad debt rules, international tax, the carbon pollution reduction scheme (CPRS), managed investment trusts (MIT) review, GST, research & development, announced but unenacted measures and small business taxation issues.  
 
Some of the Institute's recommendations include that the government should:

• make enhancements to the same business test (SBT) and consider allowing losses on start-up expenses for large scale infrastructure projects to be refundable, allowing consortium companies to flow through losses to their shareholders and introducing loss carry-back rules.
 

• review its tax treatment of emissions permits under the proposed CPRS, and consider initiatives to encourage business take-up of green technologies. These might include increasing the deduction on eligible green technology R&D expenditure to 200 per cent and either amending – or alternatively, removing altogether – thresholds applying to R&D tax offsets for companies developing green technologies.
 

• give immediate attention to measures already approved by government that have not yet been legislated, particularly those relating to foreign currency, consolidation and losses.
 

• continue to address small business issues such as those in relation to the trusts, employee share schemes and the non-commercial loss rules.