Federal Budget will help reboot and rebuild
The 2020-2021 Federal Budget delivers much-needed support for the survival and recovery of Victorian businesses.
Several measures are closely aligned with the Victorian Chamber's advocacy, including:
- A 50 per cent subsidy for businesses employing apprentices and trainees
- New JobMaker hiring credit available to employers who hire 16-35 year-olds on JobSeeker
- $1.1 billion for Victorian infrastructure projects, including important regional road and rail upgrades
- The introduction of temporary loss-carry back provisions which means businesses can claim refunds for tax paid on pre-COVID-19 profits
- Temporary full expensing to allow 99 per cent of businesses to write off the full value of assets they purchase
- An $800 million package to support the transition to digital technologies
- A $1.5 billion Modern Manufacturing Strategy to provide co-funding for large manufacturing projects to help businesses in six National Manufacturing Priority areas to scale-up, collaborate and commercialise
- $1 billion for new research funding for our universities
- $317 million for Australian exporters to continue to access global supply chains
- $550 million to support regional Australia, including $200 million for the Building Better Regions Fund and $100 million for regional recovery partnerships targeted at areas including Gippsland hit hard by drought, bushfires and COVID-19 restrictions.
- Exempting employer-provided retraining activities from fringe benefits tax to encourage reskilling
- Temporary changes to insolvency rules to help businesses stay afloat
- Reinstating $2 billion to the Research and Development Tax Incentive Scheme
- Income tax cuts for more than 11 million low and middle income earners.
To be attributed to Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Chief Executive Paul Guerra:
"This is a budget that will reward local businesses for their grit and determination, the ambitious entrepreneurs who have steadfastly stayed the course, and who are all ready to resume when permitted to grow Victorian jobs once again.
"The Victorian Chamber highlighted three key objectives that we wanted to see in the Budget: protecting and growing local business, cementing and improving our global reputation and the next big infrastructure build. We are pleased the Government has taken up our recommendations.
"This historic budget will create jobs, stimulate sectors such as manufacturing, tourism, renewable energy and technology while investing in rail and roads to improve our liveability.
"Incentivising businesses to take on apprentices and trainees has never been more important as the Victorian Chamber has seen a 45 per cent decline in commencements since March; a trend that was likely to continue without intervention.
"It's great to see significant investment in regional Victoria as our tourism areas in particular recover from a horror year of drought, bushfires and COVID-19 restrictions which have effectively cut them off from the metropolitan Melbourne visitation dollar, as well as interstate and overseas markets.
"The strong focus on encouraging a business-led recovery in the Federal Budget must be mirrored in next month's State Budget, which provides a timely opportunity to lower business costs, cut red tape, encourage investment and innovation and generate jobs."
