April 12, 2018 Small business concern over McGowan plan for tax grab The McGowan Government’s proposed payroll tax amendments will be another blow for a small business sector already facing serious skills shortages, according to Shadow Minister for Small Business Libby Mettam. Ms Mettam said a number of small business organisations are extremely concerned at the Government’s plan to remove the payroll tax exemption for training and replace it with a grants scheme, for which it has provided no details,” Ms Mettam said. “Industry feel they have been kept completely in the dark on this plan. “The Premier has tried to dress this measure up as something to address systemic rorting when in reality it is nothing more than a tax grab to fund the Premier’s $5 billion in election commitments. “The former Government became aware in 2015 that a number of businesses were unfairly taking advantage of the traineeship payroll tax exemption and introduced measures to counter this, including greater scrutiny, capping the number of traineeships a company could access and tying the training to specific roles. “These measures worked, the number of exemptions being claimed dropped and the Government as a consequence is now unable to point to any examples of the ‘systemic rorting’ it claims this tax grab will stop.” The Opposition has seen the completely inequitable way the McGowan Government administered its Local Projects/Local Jobs grants scheme and has no confidence that any trainee grants scheme it introduces wouldn’t be rorted by the McGowan Government in the same way. “I have also heard concerns that the eligibility criteria of the grants scheme, which the Government has so far been secretive about, would be skewed in favour of training courses run by the unions,” Ms Mettam said. “These are valid concerns given how generously unions supported the McGowan Government’s election campaign and the significant influence they have within the Government. “The grants system will also mean more red tape for small businesses, with no certainty of success at the end of the application process. “As a State we cannot afford to compromise training opportunities at a time when the State’s economy is undergoing significant post-boom changes.” Media Contact |
