Well, as expected there was very minimal announcements for small businesses in last night’s 2023 Federal Budget update.
The focus of the budget was mainly at relieving some of the cost-of-living pressures felt by the most vulnerable Australians.
Measures to support cost-of-living pressures included:
- Very modest increase of $40/fortnight to the JobSeeker, Austudy and Youth Allowance payments
- Extending higher payments of JobSeeker to those aged 55 and over that have been on the payment for 9 months or more (previously available to over 60s)
- Energy Rebates: these will vary by State.
- Tripling of the bulk billing incentive, aimed at creating more access to bulk billing appointments for those under 16, pensioners or concession card holders.
For Small Businesses there’s a couple of items of note:
- As expected, Temporary Full Expensing will cease on 30 June 2023. We do see the reintroduction of Instant Asset Write-off for those with less than $10m turnover. The threshold per asset will be $20,000 for the 2024 financial year. For small businesses, all other assets can be depreciated under the small business pool rate of 15% in the first year and 30% in subsequent years.
- Incentive for more energy efficient purchases: This will act as an extra tax deduction of 20% for spending that supports electrification and more efficient energy use. This is available for businesses with less than $50m turnover with a maximum incentive of $20,000, meaning up to $100,000 worth of spending.
- For Employers to put on their horizon: We’ve seen STP1 and STP2 the next project will be immediate super payments. The government has announced that from July 2026 employers will need to pay super at payday rather than quarterly.
Superannuation:
- The previously announced measure regarding doubling tax on members who have more than $3m in superannuation remains in the budget with no apparent changes to previously announced detail. We covered this announcement previously here
That’s it for the budget from our perspective. There remains no mention of any tinkering or cancellation of Stage 3 tax cuts, due to commence 1 July 2024…but there’s still next year’s budget before these come in and significant project commitments to pay for into the future.
