FIFO workers to lose tax break

Up to 180,000 fly-in fly-out workers are to lose their remote area tax break.

A federal government clamp down, expected to save $325 million over four years, was included in a tax bill introduced to parliament by Assistant Treasurer Kelly O'Dwyer on Thursday.

The Zone Tax Offset was introduced in 1945 as a compensation for putting up with the isolation, uncongenial climate and higher living costs of remote areas.

This was long before the rise of the FIFO worker, based on modern travel and the mining boom.

Ms O'Dwyer said FIFO workers were now flying in from Perth, Brisbane or Sydney, spending more than 183 non-consecutive days in a remote area, returning home and still claiming the tax break.

This wasn't the intent of the original policy and was unfair on families genuinely contending with the hardships of remote living, she said.