Bid to speed help for small business

PLANS for accelerated tax relief for small and medium business would make life easier for 37,500 enterprises in Tasmania, the Liberal Party says.

Under the plan, companies with annual turnovers of less than $50 million will have their tax rate cut to 26 per cent in 2020-21, then 25 per cent the following year.

Tasmanian Senator Eric Abetz said the announcement showed the Federal Government was focused on boosting the economy and wages.

“Next week, the Government will introduce legislation to fast-track these tax cuts for more than 37,500 small businesses in Tasmania,” Senator Abetz said.

“With more than 100,000 Tasmanians working in small business, this important reform will help to turbo-charge the small business sector in our state,” Senator Abetz said.

More than 97 per cent of the state’s businesses would be covered by the cuts.

Labor is considering supporting the plan, boosting hopes legislation could pass parliament next week.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison is confident of winning support for the plan, which would bring forward the cuts by five years at a cost of $3.2 billion.

“I’m going to legislate it next week, because small and family businesses deserve to have the support of this plan,” he told the Seven Network yesterday.

Labor leader Bill Shorten isn’t ruling out supporting the proposal.

“We will keep an open mind on this question as we examine the numbers, but the other criteria we have is that our first priority is to properly fund our schools, to properly fund our hospitals,” he said.

Businesses turning over up to $50 million had their tax cut from 30 per cent to 27.5 last year. The Government had initially planned to implement further rounds of tax cuts in 2024-25 and 2025-26, but now wants to fast-track the plan.

Mr Morrison believes key crossbench senators who rejected the Coalition’s plans to slash tax for big businesses in August will back the step.

“Why would the Senate want to stand in the way of tax cuts for small, and mediumsized businesses? They voted for them before and they voted for them for the right reasons,” he told the Nine Network.

The Prime Minister said the change won’t affect the Government’s plan to return the budget to balance by 2019-20.