Should Qantas pay back Job Keeper ?

[cove]

Even though we are shareholders we think Qantas should pay back the $900 million they trousered from Job Keeper.
It would be voluntary as there was no provision for refunds in the legislation.
What do you think?

 

[RooFlyer]

To answer you question @cove, yes, I think Qantas should voluntarily give some of the JobKeeper back, if nothing else than for good will, which it desperately needs right now. However, given the $300-$500 mill hole in the forecast balance sheet that the decision to not terminate refunds at the end of the year would will make#, I think the chances are slim.

# (BTW, can you imagine what VH's reaction was - "Great, thanks guys. I take the big seat and I'm instantly $300mill worse off ... ")

 

[ausfox]

Did Harvey Norman pay back the money? The last I heard he was saying no chance.

 

[Daver6]

Catherine King says the aviation sector is still in recovery?
Question: when does it fully recover?

If record profits mean you're not fully recovered I have no idea what is!

 

[Guvner]

Should someone on unemployment have to pay back their jobseeker payments once they find a job and make money again?

Yeah, I think they call it income tax.

 

[oz_mark]

Did Harvey Norman pay back the money? The last I heard he was saying no chance.

They repaid Jobkeeper received by the corporate controlled entities. However, what was not repaid was the Jobkeeper received by franchisees, but Harvey Norman didn't really have that money.

 

[justinbrett]

Yeah, I think they call it income tax.

My point exactly.

 

[RooFlyer]

My point exactly.

How? Qantas is not paying company tax on its record profit. Individuals don't get to accumulate past "losses" to offset income tax.

 

[justinbrett]

Individuals don't get to accumulate past "losses" to offset income tax.

Yes they can.

 

[Himeno]

The money was provided to keep staff at work, staff who otherwise, given the global situation, would have been placed on unpaid leave or let go.
The money was used for that. There is no reason Qantas should have to pay it back.

Unless you can prove that Qantas used the money for something other then what it was given to them for, they shouldn't need to return it.

 

[jrfsp]

The only reason it’s currently considering this is to buy back some good publicity at a time when QF reputation couldn’t be much worse.

Certainly wouldn’t be doing it otherwise - it’s not doing it out of moral conviction

 

[RooFlyer]

Unless you can prove that Qantas used the money for something other then what it was given to them for, they shouldn't need to return it.

Agree, but that's not the question of the OP, which was should they voluntarily repay it (I'd say some of it), obviously in the light of the huge subsequent profit.

A mental game: if Qantas hadn't received JobKeeper (BTW, the largest any company received) and had to sack/lay-off en-mass, would they have been able to generate the same tenor of profit in the YE just now? Its been argued that the company would have gone under without the government subsidies (I think Joyce said something along those lines himself??) - so, again, is the level of profit connected to the level of government support? It's not as if Qantas is going to pay any company tax on the massive profit.

Qantas is certainly not obliged to repay any of the JobKeeper (remember how it was called QantasKeeper ) but the question remains - should it voluntarily repay it/a proportion for goodwill?

 

[hwy]

And Joyce should hand back some of his $10m stock award too.

 

[Pushka]

My point exactly.

Qantas losses will extinguish that company tax for a while.

Post automatically merged: Sep 2, 2023

Yes they can.

I'd be interested to know how. The only tax accumulation is capital gains/losses.

 

[Peasant]

It’s an interesting question, to which I’m not yet sure of the answer. In some respects I’d say the ship has already sailed and so bad is their reputation at the moment they’d probably get little uplift from it.

What’s quite interesting is what this week has potentially done to the company’s finances. $570m of travel credits will no longer booked as profit in this half, potentially $250m+ in fines from the ACCC and then the possibility of repaying $900m in JobKeeper. Depending on what happens, the worst case could be a $1.7m hit from what they were forecasting a week ago.

Best CEO in Australia by the length of a straight, he said?

 

[bussyboy]

Jobkeeker did its job and was used as expected, no way it should be repaid

 

[burmans]

Qantas losses will extinguish that company tax for a while.

I think this bit is being lost on many, including here. Yes, Qantas made a large profit but airlines are inherently very cyclical businesses who actually struggle to make a profit in the long run. Measure Qantas profits over longer than a single year and their profit doesn’t look so great. And that’s not just over COVID too, I can think of plenty of places over last 10+ years that were better places for my money!

 

[Kendall Roy]

The biggest Q is why didn't ScoMo take an equity stake in QAN in exchange for taxpayer support?

Would've make a killing when cashing out!

 

[SCM]

Qantas was impacted significantly by covid, I would rather they spend that money on things which would make them more competitive - like newer aircraft, better lounge food, higher staff salaries, etc - rather than wasting it on paying dividends.

The goal of the company is to deliver maximum value - not to piss away money on dividends with the oldest fleet in the world, and a rapidly declining level of service.

Put a moritorum on dividends until Qantas is back on track I say.

 

[Guvner]

I think this bit is being lost on many, including here. Yes, Qantas made a large profit but airlines are inherently very cyclical businesses who actually struggle to make a profit in the long run. Measure Qantas profits over longer than a single year and their profit doesn’t look so great. And that’s not just over COVID too, I can think of plenty of places over last 10+ years that were better places for my money!

During Joyce's 15 year tenure Qantas has not made a profit (coughulative over the 15 years), paid less in tax than it received in tax credits (so essentially paid no tax), and received nearly $3 Billion in taxpayer handouts. Probably the most glaring example of a publicly listed enterprise privatising profits and socialising losses you will ever see. Yet the bloke walks away with nearly $30 million.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

The money was provided to keep staff at work, staff who otherwise, given the global situation, would have been placed on unpaid leave or let go.
The money was used for that. There is no reason Qantas should have to pay it back.

Unless you can prove that Qantas used the money for something other then what it was given to them for, they shouldn't need to return it.

This is where it gets really confusing.

You read the media and they let go up to 5000 staff during covid. They outsourced more positions.

Was Jobkeeper used across the board to keep the entire workforce, or was it used selectively to only some staff?

Jobkeeper was $900 million, what is the rest of the $2.5 billion that gets bandied about (aka QantasKeeper)? Should some or all of that be repaid?

It’s very confusing to work out fact from fiction.

It should be easy to explain, but no one seems to want to tackle it for the public to understand.