Australians have woken up to a pre-Christmas gift of around $400 in their bank accounts after the government made changes to student loans.
On Thursday morning, the Australian Taxation Office issued the refunds, which averaged $400, as a result of legislation that changed the indexation of student and training loans.
The ATO said last week that anyone with indexed student loans in the past two years would receive a refund of the excess funds.
“Most people will see these credits in their accounts by the end of January,” he said in a statement.
“Some credits will take a little longer than others to appear in accounts depending on complexity.”
The legislation became law last month and changed how student debt is indexed.
Before the law, they were indexed based on the inflation rate, the Consumer Price Index (CPI).
But now they are indexed in line with the CPI or the wage price index, whichever is lower.
The legislation became law last month and changed the way student debt is indexed.
The change was applied retrospectively over the last two financial years.
It means people with student debt will receive a credit and people who have paid off their debt since 2023 will receive a refund.
How much Australians will get back will depend on how much they owed when indexation was applied.
More to come…