Federal Budget 2016: Company and Business Highlights

There are some tinkering at the edges for business:

• The company tax rate will be reduced from 30% to 25% over 10 years.  Good: this will make Australia relatively more competitive with other jurisdictions (e.g. New Zealand 28%, Singapore 17%).  Bad: (1) we are still lagging behind many other countries encouraging companies to direct their earnings to be taxed in lower-tax jurisdictions (2) changing the tax rate multiple times over the next 10 years is an administrative and bureaucratic nightmare only a Government could think to do

• The small business entity turnover threshold will be increased from $2m to $10m from 1 July 2016, allowing more business to access various income tax concessions (e.g. immediate deduction for assets under $20,000)

• The unincorporated small business tax discount will continue, and will be expanded over 10 years.