Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm always pleased to rise and speak on a treasury laws amendment bill, and it's good to see the Assistant Treasurer in the House for the contribution. I'm sure he'll appreciate it, as he always does.

The Treasury Laws Amendment (2022 Measures No. 2) Bill 2022 implements a number of sensible measures from the previous coalition government. I'm pleased to say that it's good to see the government looking to pursue and implement those measures, which are part of a long line of many sensible measures that we implemented over the last nine years in government. The implementation of a number of these measures was delayed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, but this bill provides effective changes to support small business in handling their affairs with the ATO and provides them with additional support in the event of inadvertent breaches, as opposed to penalties.

I'll say at the outset that it would be fair to characterise the ATO's relationship with small business as certainly not a love-love relationship. It's probably more a love-hate relationship. We need to do anything that we can in this place to make that relationship better. We need to ensure that small businesses are treated by the ATO with the respect and dignity they deserve and that, when they do make inadvertent errors, they're not inappropriately penalised for those oversights. Small businesses don't have accounting departments, chief financial officers and all of the things that our large corporates do. Many of them are mum-and-dad businesses where people are not just the financial managers; they're also seeking to run the business each and every day and generate sales and revenue. More often than not they have a mortgage on that small business that is secured by their home, so they've got the pressure of keeping a roof over their head, and that is entirely dependent on how the business goes. They're also employing people in our local communities and supporting our local sporting clubs and community organisations. And they certainly don't have HR departments; the business owners are the HR department.

This bill provides small business with additional support in dealing with the ATO appeals process and removes tax barriers to sole traders and individuals looking to upskill. It also, importantly, supports gig economy contractors and companies to manage their tax obligations. In this place, we all know of the growing prevalence of the gig economy in a whole range of areas.

The measures in this bill also put in place the coalition's election commitment to support Australians over 55 to downsize their properties and contribute to their superannuation. The bill builds on the coalition's strong record of supporting small business, supporting retirees, making sensible reforms to superannuation and supporting the housing market.

Schedule 1 of the bill amends the Tax Administration Act 1953 to empower the commissioner, where the commissioner reasonably believes an entity has failed to comply with its tax related record-keeping obligations, to direct the entity to complete an approved record-keeping course as an alternative to existing financial penalties. I think that's an excellent move. One of the benefits of the increase in technology that we see all around us is the ability for small business to have access to good technology to keep much better records. I know, because I see the work my brother does as a ceramic tiler in the building industry, that this is particularly important for tradespeople and self-employed people, who don't necessarily keep the records that they should keep. If they can do a record-keeping course and get access to appropriate software and other training to better manage their financial and tax affairs, without being penalised, I think that's a particularly good initiative.

The bill also introduces, in schedule 2, a third-party reporting regime, which will require sharing economy online platforms to report identification and income information, regarding participating sellers, to the ATO for data-matching purposes. We've already seen that in other areas, particularly in the building sector, where there are reporting requirements for data-matching purposes. This measure will apply to ride-sourcing, short-term accommodation platforms, asset sharing, food delivery, task based platforms and other platforms in the economy. Once these platforms begin these measures, it's expected to result in increased self-reporting of currently unreported or underreported income by sellers.

Schedule 3 of the bill amends the Income Tax Assessment Act to make consequential amendments to the fringe benefits tax, to remove the exclusions as a deductible expense for the first $250 of expenses for prescribed courses of education. This is another measure that I think adds to providing incentive to undertake additional education, to build the skills of small-business owners and tradespeople. It delivers on the coalition's 2021-22 budget commitment to backing small business with a simple, fast and cheap way to pause or modify—sorry, that's a separate matter; schedule 4 does this—in relation to orders with the AAT, and to stay those orders or otherwise affect ATO debt recovery actions. This is an area where I have had many discussions with small-business operators across my electorate and the conduct of the ATO in these particular matters.

I'll congratulate the government on taking this coalition budget measure of backing small business with a simple, fast and cheap way to pause or modify the ATO debt recovery action in relation to debt that is currently under review by the AAT. I would go a step further and look to see wholesale reform of this area and ensure that the ATO is much more forthcoming in its reasons and explaining why it comes up with these assessments in the first place. But this is a good step, in the right direction, by enabling small business to pause any ATO debt recovery action while their case is being decided by the independent umpire.

Schedule 5 of the bill partially implements helping homeowners who want to downsize, a commitment announced by the former government on 15 May 2022. This was ultimately matched as an election commitment by Labor.

These measures, I'm pleased to say, build on the tremendous track record of the coalition government over the last nine years of providing support to small and medium business, across the economy, in recognition of the tremendous effort that they provide to innovation, employment and generating wealth for our country. We often hear about our big corporates but, more often than not, where a lot of our innovation occurs is in our small to medium business sector.

The measures we took during our time in government were because we understand the importance of small and family business across our economy. One of the great measures that we undertook, when we were in government, was the establishment of the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman in 2016, to ensure that small business had an advocate within government and in the community. As they're part of the role, the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman assists small business to resolve disputes through case management and alternative dispute resolution processes. The coalition also bolstered the mediation services within the Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman and established the Small Business Taxation Division within the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. I think, again, that was a tremendous step in assisting small business with what sometimes can be very difficult matters with the ATO. I know that in my time on the Standing Committee on Tax and Revenue we had many discussions about the ATO and the way they conducted their process of dispute resolution and management. We strengthened protections for small and family businesses through including them in the unfair contract provisions and providing greater access, again, to alternative dispute resolution processes through various industry codes.

All of these measures and many more are the track record that the previous coalition government has left for this country and for our small business sector, and I'm very proud to have been part of the government that delivered those key and important measures. As we keep working towards supporting small and medium businesses across our economy, I'm happy to see the government take up some of those measures which we would have implemented if we'd had the privilege of being re-elected to government at the last election. I'm pleased to see that the government has decided to take these on and they are reflected in this bill.

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