Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Service Economy, Small Business and Independent Contractors) Share this | Hansard source

Sadly the coalition government has voted against Labor’s BAS Easy proposal. It says that it is a friend of small business, but the Treasurer obviously finds BAS Easy too hard. BAS Easy is an option for a small business to be able to complete its GST bookkeeping requirements within a few minutes rather than the several hours that are required under a GST that has been in operation now for more than six years. You would think that, if it genuinely was a friend of small business, the government would embrace Labor’s BAS Easy proposal. Instead the Treasurer announced in the budget that he would extend the simplified accounting methods to a greater range of small businesses—not just mixed food retailers but all small businesses—but only on the basis that if a small business wanted to have a look at the option of the simplified accounting methods then that business would be able to approach the tax office. Our grave concern is that the Treasurer has wanted to give the appearance of helping out small businesses with their GST bookkeeping requirements but in fact will not give any such help at all. If he were genuine about giving help then he would have instructed his coalition members to support BAS Easy. The fear we hold is that if the coalition were re-elected then the answer that small businesses will get from the tax office, when approaching and asking what ratio they might be entitled to, will be a very unfavourable one—in other words, defeating entirely the purpose of simplifying the GST bookkeeping requirements.

In order to explore that a little further I have foreshadowed to the revenue minister that we would like to get a greater understanding of the proportion of small businesses that are availing themselves of the simplified tax system. Labor supports the simplified tax system. I think I can say that on behalf of the shadow Minister for Revenue and Assistant Treasurer. It is a good idea. It allows small businesses to group small assets and to write them off either immediately or at a faster rate than otherwise would apply. There are other benefits as well of the simplified tax system. I would point out that when Labor senators were asking government officials in November last year about the proportion of small businesses that were availing themselves of the simplified tax system and therefore would be eligible for the simplified accounting methods, the answer given was the figure of around 28 per cent.

We accept that the simplified tax system at that point in time was still relatively new and that it would take time for accountants to advise small businesses of the benefits of the simplified tax system. It is not a criticism. We are simply pointing out that 28 per cent of eligible small businesses seems to be a rather small proportion. We did hear from the minister that there is something in excess of 600,000 businesses now availing themselves of the simplified tax system. That sounds like a lot, but I am not sure how the tax office or Treasury is counting the total number of small businesses. We are asking a simple question—that is, the proportion of eligible small businesses that is accessing the simplified tax system. I accept the possibility, though not the likelihood, that the minister will not know the answer to that question—although I did alert him to that a little earlier. I hope he will be able to enlighten us here tonight. If he cannot then we would like to pursue this matter further so that we have a better understanding of the whole operation of the simplified tax system.

See this speech in context