Less red tape for businesses to tap into upcoming government funding

(Read time: 1 min 10 sec)

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.