Commonwealth Consolidated Acts

STUDENT ASSISTANCE ACT 1973 - SECT 44A

             (1)  Subject to this section, a benefit is not payable in respect of a person (in this section called the applicant ) under a current special educational assistance scheme, or financial supplement is not to be paid to a person (in this section also called the applicant ) under the Student Financial Supplement Scheme, unless the Secretary is given:

                     (a)  the applicant's tax file number; and

                     (b)  where another person's income or assets are required to be taken into account for the purpose of calculating the benefit, that person's tax file number.

             (2)  Paragraph (1)(b) does not require the giving of the tax file number of a person who:

                     (a)  is a parent of the applicant for the purposes of the scheme under which application for the benefit in question has been made; and

                     (b)  is resident outside Australia; and

                     (c)  had no assessable income under the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 or the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 for the period in relation to which the person's income is to be taken into account for the purpose of calculating the benefit.

             (3)  Subsection (1) does not apply to a benefit if the application for the benefit was made before 1 July 1991.

             (4)  The regulations may prescribe circumstances in which a benefit or financial supplement may be paid even though a tax file number required by subsection (1) to be given to the Secretary has not been given.

             (5)  Subject to subsection (6), a person is taken, for the purposes of the ABSTUDY scheme, to have given his or her tax file number to the Secretary if he or she has lodged an application for a tax file number with the Department.

             (6)  If the Commissioner for Taxation refuses to issue a tax file number to a person who has lodged an application with the Department under subsection (5), subsection (5) is taken not to have applied to that person in relation to that application.

             (7)  In this section, tax file number has the same meaning as in Part VA of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 .