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Assessing income and assets from cooperatives 108-04030000

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This document outlines how income and assets from a cooperative are assessed and recorded for Centrelink purposes.

Shareholders in a cooperative

A cooperative is an organisation established for the mutual benefit of its members for some specific purpose, e.g.:

  • making loans
  • providing goods and services

Customers who are members of a cooperative are shareholders. In some circumstances, they may get bonus shares in place of a payment of a rebate for past purchases. This is a notifiable event.

Shares held in cooperatives are:

  • financial assets
  • assessable at their current market value

The annual income derived from a customer's investment in a cooperative is deemed unless the security is exempt from deeming.

For a financial investment that has been granted an exemption, the actual income a customer gets from a financial investment is assessable.

Income from cooperatives is not employment income, it is:

  • other ordinary income
  • not used when calculating the accrual of Working Credits

A customer cannot offset income using:

  • a Working Credit Balance
  • a Work Bonus (if over Age Pension age)

The Resources page has a link to the Income and investments form (Mod iA).

Deeming exemptions

Deeming provisions

Financial investments

General notification provisions and exceptions