Foodbank is seeking the support of a National Food Donation Tax Incentive

With the help of a Fight Food Waste CRC project, Foodbank Australia commissioned a report from KPMG on a proposal for this new tax incentive to reduce food waste, promote sustainability and support businesses at the same time as helping many Australians in need of food relief.

Click here to add your logo to a food industry letter of support.

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What is the issue?

  • 6 million tonnes of food each year (70% perfectly edible) is wasted costing the economy over $36.6 billion while at the same time 2 million households experience food insecurity. This incentive has the potential to save the equivalent of an additional 100 million meals a year.
  • The current tax system misses an opportunity to adequately motivate food producers, manufacturers, retailers and food service to donate their surplus.  In fact, current tax regulation treats donating as no different to dumping. In addition, there is no tax recognition for contributing the transportation, storage and other logistics required in donating to charities. This makes redirecting surplus to food relief a cost that businesses often cannot carry.

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What are we proposing?

  • Our submission to Government is to provide a tax incentive broadly in line with the current R&D incentive system. The proposal is smart policy that would help to bridge the food relief gap and generate net gains in economic and social returns. In addition, it is designed to provide particular support to SMEs (e.g. farmers) while encouraging all food businesses, large and small, to direct their surplus assisting in achieving the target of halving food waste by 2030.
  • For smaller businesses, the proposal is to provide a tax break that would equate to a net 20% cash back. For larger businesses it would be a net 10% credit on their tax bill.

How you can help

Click here and fill out the form to add the logo of your business to a letter of support which we intend to submit to the Federal Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, along with the KPMG proposal.

For more information

Follow these links for a copy of the full proposal, a report on consultation with food industry and a short video on the initiative.