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Holly Stearnes 

But in regards to the rest of the world, obviously, the globe is watching on as Australia puts forward its budget as we the first one of the First Nations to begin our financial recovery. How do you think we’re going to be sitting in regards to the rest of the world when it comes to financial recovery for businesses? And that kind of thing?

Bill Lang 

Yeah, well, look, you know, Australia has, had a very good track record in recent years in terms of managing its debt levels. And having budgets being on the way back to being they call it surplus, the politicians, that means in profit, you know, more cash coming in than going out. Now we’re in a deficit, which means we’re making a loss, there’s more cash going out than coming in.

But compared to many other countries, we are very well placed when you look at the various analysis and the ratios and things. But again, you just can’t keep borrowing money, someone’s going to have to pay it back. Holly, people of your generation, they’re going to have to pay this money back in the future. So while the good times roll, it’s not like a buy now, never pay back. You know, we’re all going to have to pay it back.

So it is important that when the government goes into loss or goes into deficit, the money’s going towards things that are going to make the country more productive, increase the level of income, increase the level of taxes, so those things can be paid back.

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Holly Stearnes 

Another side of it that we know is like the training side of thing, the Job Trainer it was called, what do we know about that? Because obviously, a lot of businesses were actually struggling, especially in hospitality, to even hire staff and then train them up to the level and it all comes in an expense. So what do we know about that as well?

Bill Lang 

Well look, one of the big issues we’ve got at the moment is in Far North Queensland used to have a lot of international tourists and international students there are businesses up there tourism and hospitality businesses, they cannot find employees.

So when you can’t find readily find employees with the skills that you need, you’re going to have to invest in helping people get trained and upskill them so they can do it. And so the government is making available to any business, now up until any business and employees anybody new until the end of March in 2022. If they put them into a formal training programme become what’s called a trainee, that business is eligible for almost $32,000 out of a say a total training and compensation package for that new employees $56,000.

So the government’s going to help you hire the person and train them and pay for big proportion of their wages and salary. So now’s the time for business to find particularly younger people or other people that need to be re-skilled. Take advantage of, again more than a billion dollars being made available to help you upskill, employee and upskill people.

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Holly Stearnes 

One industry, obviously, that was heavily impacted was the tourism, the aviation with international borders closed, but also the other side of it that stopped international students coming in. So that goes on to affect, you know, universities and that kind of thing. And it really has a flow on effect to 1000s of businesses underneath that as well. Is there any support in there for those kinds of industries?

Bill Lang 

So look, the government’s announced increased support for the tourism travel agent sector, so it’s a big number in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Again, the devil will be in the detail how much will be available to individual businesses and how easy will it be to get it those two things are very important. Entertainment and events festivals a fund is being made available there again, to help facilitate the events and the festivals getting back on their feet. So, you know there are real positive with respect to industries like that and there are some other industries where they are providing you know, some targeted support.

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Holly Stearnes 

Is there anything in regards to I guess, equipment for businesses or digital infrastructure, that kind of thing?

Bill Lang 

Yeah. So more good news in that the federal government has extended by now another year, what’s called the instant asset write off.

Now typically, when a business buys an asset that they’re going to use for a number of years, they depreciate it, which means they are able to charge some of that as an expense each year for a number of years. But when you do it instantly, it means the whole 100% of what you spent, but say on buying a new Isuzu ute if you’re tradie or buying some new computers for your office, or new teleconferencing equipment, for example.

So that means that you can get the full tax deduction, which means you paid less tax in that particular year, more cash flow for the business, more able to survive more able to invest more able to employ very good news.

Holly Stearnes 

Yeah, really good news. I know a big focus of the budget as well was digital infrastructure. How exactly will be success impact businesses? Will it help them? Let’s talk about that?

Bill Lang 

Yeah, well, look, it’s a big number, something like $1.2 billion to further digitise Australia and it’s broken that down into a number of pools. So the government is going to look to reduce red tape and make dealing with government much easier for businesses. That’s good, remove the friction, less time doing admin and dealing with bureaucracy that’s good for business.

There’s also been some announcements around, you know, money available and support to help businesses get more digitised. So the government’s also going to do some things around government digital cadets or more people to get opportunities working in government in their digital space.

There’s also some talk about pools of money being available to help businesses further digitise themselves. We’ve got to see what the detail is on that and to see you know, ideally, lots of small businesses being able to access it easily and being a meaningful amount of financial support that will make a difference.

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Holly Stearnes 

The Australian budget was handed down last night and it’s received mixed reviews, that’s for sure. But to get his take on it and the reaction from small business right across Australia, let’s bring in Bill Lang from Small Business Australia. Hi, Bill. Thanks always for your time. Now let’s talk about this the budget was handed down. Now there definitely was mixed reviews mixed emotions from all different industries. But what exactly does it mean for business?

Bill Lang 

Yeah, well, I think Small Business Australia, our review of what’s been announced is we probably give it an A minus, which is a really strong mark, with respect to the impact for business, one of the most important things for business is having customers that are confident and confident spending their money. So the tax cuts for low and middle income earners is more money in their pocket, more money to spend, and most of that money will get spent with small businesses. So we give that an A plus with respect to that.

But another area, which is really important, because there’s still more than four in 10, small businesses do not have their revenue back at the level that it was before COVID happened. So some of them are still looking at making losses. And what the government also announced was that if they were paying tax in the year before COVID came, if they do make losses for the last financial year and this upcoming financial year, they’ll be able to get a refund from the ATO from the Australian Tax Office, get back some of that money they paid a couple of years ago when they were profitable, to help keep their businesses going. So again, that’s a real positive with respect to supporting in that case for in 10 small businesses.

Holly Stearnes 

So how does that actually work? How do they go about it? So once they lodge their tax returns, that’s when it all equate to that return? Or how does it all work?

Bill Lang 

Yeah. So typically, when a company or a business makes a loss, they have to carry it forward, and they can offset it against a future profit. So in this case, it will look at you know, what was the taxable profit in the year 2018-2019. The fact that it’s made a loss Now, what’s the value of that loss? How much tax therefore, could they get back based on what they’ve paid? So the computers work it all out, and it’s always important for all business people to, you know, confirm with their tax advisor, that they’re getting it right but you know, the accountants and tax advisers on top of it