Article
Gunns: tax breaks or forests
Matthew Denholm and Samantha Maiden, The Australian
TIMBER company Gunns will demand far greater access to native forests to feed its proposed $1.4 billion pulp mill if Canberra winds back tax breaks for plantation investments. Gunns chairman John Gay told The Australian yesterday plans before federal cabinet to limit the upfront tax deductibility of plantation managed investment schemes (MIS) would destroy the forest industry. Cabinet is divided over the issue, with more than 12 Coalition MPs rising in this week’s partyroom meeting to defend MIS, warning new investment in regional areas could be lost. Mr Gay said any crackdown on MIS would make it far more difficult to build his company’s planned mill in northern Tasmania — the single biggest forestry project in Australian history. “It would make it a lot, lot more difficult and we would have to have a lot more native forests available to us,” he said.