How does industry funding work?

Industry funding allows ASIC to recoup its regulatory costs from industry through a combination of levies and fees-for-service. Regulated organisations have been categorised into six sectors and 48 subsectors. Approximately 90% of ASIC's regulatory costs will be allocated among these subsectors through either a flat levy or a graduated levy. The remaining approximately 10% will be collected via fees-for-service. Your organisation may form part of multiple subsectors depending on your authorisations and business activities. The levy relevant for each subsector will be payable.

The Market Infrastructure and Market Intermediaries sectors contain the following subsectors:

The industry funding model will recover the actual amount spent during the previous financial year. This means the levies can only be calculated and issued in the following financial year.

Fees-for-serviceFees-for-service recover the regulatory costs attributable to an individual organisation and apply to licensing and professional registrations, applications for relief, and review of corporate finance transaction documents.

The current fees for these activities do not reflect their actual cost.

Government previously consulted on fees-for-service in 2015 and 2017 and is currently developing a final industry consultation paper for release in 2018.

Fees for service will likely take effect from 1 July 2018 subject to legislation. 

How is the levy calculated?

Some organisations will pay a flat levy, with the cost of regulating a subsector shared equally among the organisations operating in that subsector. Others will pay a graduated levy, with the organisation’s size or level of business activity determining their share of costs.

For details of how we will calculate levies for each sector, see report 535.

In July 2018 you will receive login details to the new Regulatory Portal. You will be required to log in between July and September 2018 to submit or validate pre-filled business activity metrics (e.g. revenue or asset value).

We will use the information provided to calculate the final levy you pay. The levy may be comprised of two parts:

• a minimum levy component, and
• a graduated levy component (based on specified metrics).

What are metrics?

The metrics used to calculate the levy are set out in section 20(3) of ASIC Supervisory Cost Recovery Levy Regulations 2017. The metric for those subsectors with a graduated levy includes:

• the number of messages and transactions
• total transaction value
• gross revenue above $1,000,000
• the number of persons engaged in OTC trading activities.

When do I need to provide ASIC with my metrics?

You will be required to log in to the Regulatory Portal between July and September 2018 to submit business activity metrics (e.g. revenue or asset value). You will receive log in details to the Regulatory Portal in June 2018.

Your metrics may be pre-filled based on our records, however, it is your responsibility to check the pre-filled information before lodging your metrics. In other cases, we will require you to provide metric information.

What happens if I do not lodge a return of my reportable activity?

We may give you a default notice setting out the amount of the levy that you are liable to pay if:

• you do not lodge a return of your activity for the period
• we are not satisfied with the information you provide, or
• you fail to provide ASIC with information requested to substantiate information in your return.

When will I receive the levy invoice?

We expect to issue invoices based on your metrics and the calculation of the final subsector costs in January 2019.

When does the levy need to be paid?

ASIC's industry funding model is based on costs from the previous financial year. The invoice you receive will be based on activity you report for the preceding financial year and the actual costs incurred by ASIC in regulating your subsector(s) that financial year.

For example, the invoice that ASIC will send to you in January 2019 will be based on activity reported by your organisation for FY2017–18 and ASIC's actual regulatory costs allocated to the Market Infrastructure and Market Intermediaries sectors for FY2017-18.

Is the levy tax deductible?

Yes – the levy is tax deductible.

Can I recover the cost of the levy?

The industry funding levy will become an annual cost of doing business. We recognise this will be challenging for organisations in the first year because indicative levies will not be published until March 2018. However, we will do our best to provide you with estimates where possible.

Some subsectors (e.g. Corporate Advisors, OTC Traders and Wholesale Electricity Dealers) will not receive indicative levies in March 2018 because we do not have the information to accurately estimate the metrics. We will be able to publish indicative levies for these subsectors in FY 2018–19.

What ASIC costs are recovered by the levy?

Most of ASIC’s regulatory activities will be recovered from industry. These activities are outlined in our Cost Recovery Implementation Statement (published in October each year) and include:

• stakeholder engagement
• education
• guidance
• surveillance
• enforcement, and
• policy advice.

The Cost Recovery Implementation Statement helps to increase the transparency of our costs – strengthening our accountability to industry.