Photo by: Bloomberg
PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Greenfield mineral explorers have been reminded that the federal government’s Junior Mineral Exploration Incentive (JMEI) will open on June 1.
The JMEI was passed through the Australian Parliament in March this year, and will see the government provide more than A$100-million over the next four years, to allow greenfield exploration programmes to distribute tax losses as a credit to their Australian resident shareholders.
“The JMEI enables eligible companies to generate tax credits by giving up a portion of their tax losses from greenfield mineral exploration expenditure, which can then be distributed to shareholders,” Association of Mining and Exploration Companies (Amec) CEO Warren Pearce said on Thursday.
“Twenty-three applicants were successful in accessing A$8.4-million of exploration credits for the 2017/18 income year. The balance remaining from the initial A$15-million allocation for 2017/18 will be added to the A$25-million exploration credits available for the 2018/19 round, with applicants now able to access credits totalling in excess of A$31.5-million.”
Pearce noted that applicants were limited to 5% of the available credits on a first-come, first-serve basis, with applications closing at 11.59pm AEST on June 30.
“This is a great opportunity for eligible companies to raise new capital for greenfield mineral exploration, increase their chances of successful discovery and future mine development, and for their investors to be rewarded.
“The re-designed JMEI was the outcome of considerable input from Amec, and therefore we look forward to the first announcement of a successful discovery as a direct result of funding from the JMEI,” Pearce said.