Cash Flow Boost:

Temporary cash flow boosts will support small and medium businesses and not-for-profit organisations during the economic downturn associated with COVID-19.

Eligible businesses and not-for-profit (NFP) organisations who employ staff will receive between $20,000 to $100,000 in cash flow boost amounts by lodging their activity statements up to the month or quarter of September 2020.

The cash flow boosts will be delivered as credits in the activity statement system. They will generally be equivalent to the amount withheld from wages paid to employees for each monthly or quarterly period from March to June 2020. In practice, this means you keep the amounts you have withheld from payments for these periods.

An additional cash flow boost will be applied when activity statements for each monthly or quarterly period from June to September 2020 are lodged. These credits are equal to the total boosts credited for March to June 2020. They will be paid out in either two or four instalments depending on your reporting cycle.

You must lodge your activity statements to receive the cash flow boosts.

Supporting Apprentice and trainees

The government also introduced a package supporting small business to retain their apprentices and trainees. The employers will be reimbursed up to a maximum of $21,000 per eligible apprentice or trainee, if the employers are employing fewer than 20 full time employees. The apprentice or trainee must have been in training with a small business as at 1 March 2020. There is a registration requirement for eligibility.

Other support measures

The ATO also announced the following support measures to assist businesses impacted by Covid-19

• Deferring by up to four months the payment date of amounts due through the business activity statement (including PAYG instalments), income tax assessments, fringe benefits tax assessments and excise
• Allow businesses on a quarterly reporting cycle to opt into monthly GST reporting in order to get quicker access to GST refunds they may be entitled to
• Allowing businesses to vary Pay As You Go (PAYG) instalment amounts to zero for the March 2020 quarter. Businesses that vary their PAYG instalment to zero can also claim a refund for any instalments made for the September 2019 and December 2019 quarters
• Remitting any interest and penalties, incurred on or after 23 January 2020, that have been applied to tax liabilities
• Working with affected businesses to help them pay their existing and ongoing tax liabilities by allowing them to enter in low interest payment plans.

Employers will still need to meet their ongoing super guarantee obligations for their employees.

Instant Asset Write off

Increase the instant asset write off threshold from $30k to $150k for asset purchased before 30^th June 2020.

Discuss with the accountant, how we can help you & your business to survive in his hard times & manage your cash flow.