Free Cash for Small and Medium Businesses…
- Refunds of PAYGW – SMEs could receive up to $100,000 of tax-free cash!
Eligibility terms:
- Your business must be an active employer and
- Employed workers/staff prior to 12 March 2020 (with the exception of charities or NFP as it is anticipated new entities will be set up for charitable purposes)
- Lodge your BAS in April 2020 showing PAYGW
1st payment – from April 2020
- Refund of PAYGW (capped at $50,000) for the March, April, May and June activity statements
- The amount will be refunded automatically by the ATO from the end of April 2020 (or applied as a credit to the integrated client account)
- The minimum amount that will be refunded is $10,000 (increased from the $2,000 announced a few days ago)
- If you lodge monthly, you will receive further refunds when the April and May BAS are lodged (until the $50,000 cap is reached)
- For quarterly lodgers, the June BAS refund (up to the cap) will be made in July 2020
2nd payment – from July 2020
If your business was eligible for the 1st payment, and you continue to be an active employer, you would receive a further refund starting in July 2020 (for those lodging monthly BAS) up to $50,000 (minimum refunded is $10,000) and October 2020 for those lodging quarterly BAS.
Overall, an employer may be entitled to a total refund of $100,000 (the minimum that will be refunded is $20,000).
The payments are tax-free.
- Bank lending Guarantee Scheme
The Government has announced that, under this scheme, it will provide a guarantee of 50% to lenders for providing new unsecured loans to support SME businesses with working capital requirements.
Terms:
- Maximum loan of $250,000 per borrower
- The maximum term of the loan is 3 years
- Repayment holiday for an initial 6 months
The intention is that the lending facility would be made available as a line of credit which would only require repayments to be made or interest to be paid once the funds were used. Temporary changes to bank capital ratios are to be introduced to allow more SMEs to qualify for new lending facilities. No fees to be paid on the establishment of the loans.
The scheme will commence in April 2020.
- Other measures for financially distressed businesses
Acknowledging that a number of businesses will suffer trading difficulties, the following temporary measures have been put in place:
- The threshold at which creditors can issue a statutory demand increased from $2,000 to $20,000
- The time a business has to respond increased from 21 days to 6 months
- Temporary relief has been given to directors from personal liability for trading while insolvent
- The ATO will also cease to issue withholding enforcement actions including Director Penalty notices and wind-ups for a temporary period
New measures are being announced by the Government almost on a daily basis so if you want to find out how the latest measures impact your business, please get in touch!
